A Guy I Met in Utah

Martin Sees Angels

Hermit/wolf.
Cliff dweller, overlook and lighthouse.
A canyon top mountain man.
He’s hewn and hacked,
glued, dragged, and caulked
raised, set, tarred, blunted
till there’s something like a cabin
where there was no man.
Nothing but bent crackled aspen,
night chitters, rock curved winds,
and the air tear of hawk cry.
Now there is Martin.

Martin sees angels,
and I see Martin.

We made acquaintance in town.
I noticed him black haired and moss faced,
eyes at the bottom of wells.
He is young and wild, Jesus aged,
thin as lightning, as quick,
Martin walks with the posture of kings.
But it’s his clean pious hands,
slow, deliberate, jazz player hands
that when shook make me think.

To hear his visions,
I periled up that canyon trail.
“Goat trail,” he chuckles,
feeding his goat companion, Josephus.
“You just missed Gabriel…”
Martin offhands,
arm sweeping towards an empty space
hovering over his cratebox table.
“Sometimes he won’t talk,
but today he had things to say.
The end is coming, boy.
If you can make it in time,
this place is hallowed, a holy of holies.”

Some in the valley remember
he had a girl come up from Tennessee.
But she skipped after one winter.
His hair tangled down after that,
only left for necessaries.
And then the angels started.
He got that look.
A few times, one old-timer swore,
Martin’d been known to show up at doors
right before a death
to give the grieved comforts
that angels were in attendance.
Every time, deceased the minute he left.

That year, Winter was vengeance.
And no one could reach Martin.
His goat trail impossible,
the canyon tops brimmed.
Two months became three.
And suddenly Martin,
stumbled into Herberts’ ranch.
I came to his bedridden side.
Thin as fog now, shrunk to a thought almost.
He was a fever.

“When the first snow come,
I checked my cupboards.
Twenty cans of beans.
Everyday I’d eat a half a can.
But that lasted me only forty days.
So I had to kill Josephus,
and not one, not one angel
came for me, comforted me.
Even when Josephus’ meat went bad,
and I lay starved, wracked, and weary.
My will and strength to drag more firewood
waned and the snow creeped toward me.
That’s when he came.
Elijah brought me here, chariots ablaze,
on his great fire skinned steeds.
Feel that? I burn where his arms cradled me.”