Just over the summit when he could look down
at the lower valleys,
when he had to brake to concentrate
on navigating the hairpin turns,
he began to weep over the steering wheel
of his small, battered car,
not knowing why he was weeping,
only that a wrong –
large and profound as
the huge boulders on cliffs
and embankments hovering above him –
still loomed
Tears fogging his eyeglasses
he bounced off ruts into a turnaround,
side casting dust and gravel,
braked again, shouldered open the door,
stood with elbows on the roof of the car,
jaws held and centered by his hands,
weeping until he cried himself clear,
and could view the vastness
of evergreen, aspen, stone and stream,
the depth of the gorge,
could see from above
the incomprehensible history of the world