John Brantingham - Crossing The High Sierra - New Book!

Just after Dawn, Wolverton Camp

I drank too much last night, laughed too much,

ate more than was good for me.

I do that too often. We all do,

and this morning my eyes are bright with dawn,

and I’m blowing steam, stomping like a horse 

who hates the long wait in his paddock.

No one’s moving, so I take my hangover,

my garbage sack belly and trudge

without even a pack

up the side of the mountain,

puffing because of yesterday

and 46 years of nights like that,

and there has never been a morning like this one.

I am alone unless you count

raccoons, scrub jay, deer and the whole cast,

just me sweating last night’s sin,

just me walking where I’ve never been,

going home.

John Brantingham is Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park’s first poet laureate. His work has been featured in hundreds of magazines and The Best Small Fictions 2016. He has ten books of poetry and fiction including The L.A. Fiction Anthology (Red Hen Press) and A Sublime and Tragic Dance (Cholla Needles). He teaches at Mt. San Antonio College. He and his wife, Ann, teach poetry, fiction, and art classes in Sequoia and Kings Canyon.

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