Stratum I (Petrarch) Poem by Thomas Kling

the peak ahead, the slope behind me,
yet she is what I always see. wind

wounds that will not heal. protruding
roots, underbrush, cropped sparse grass

amid the hard gravel, thorny in
the northern wind... as he wrote

in a letter. then two helicopters,
black and suddenly out of nowhere,

circling over the square. rotors
whir; the jagged escape of the swifts

which dive, shrilly
in the scarce, decap-

itated air. air! each breath a crampon!
by noon, thin air. then distance.

Translation, Peter Filkins