Ellie J. Anderson

Published by Scapegoat Literary Magazine in Issue 093: October 7, 2024

 

We hike toward a waterfall cascading

through a split in the wall of rock above us.

A crow soundlessly slices a shadow

across the field of snow.

One breath, and the bird is gone.

At the tree line, the tail section

of an airplane, the metal edges ripped

and ragged, stands shiny in the twisted

alpine firs.

The engines lie in the shallow creek,

water pouring over cylinders.

Scrub cushions one wing, the other

is charred into rock,

the ground littered with pieces

I can hold in my hand:

aluminum with buttons, rivets, zipper

heads, upholstery, and jacket fabric

melted into lumps.

In one, the fingertip of a leather glove,

a bobby pin.

It happened in nineteen forty-eight.

A cargo plane clipped the ridge

in a blizzard. Six men died. One woman.

The color of her hairpin tells me she was blond.

The townspeople saw

a fiery flash in a night sky filled with snow.

In daylight, fighting drifts and high winds,

they dragged the bodies out in bags on toboggans.

 

This would be a good place to leave

your spirit. In the silence,

the wind breathes over the ridge,

and water trickles beneath a layer of ice

that turns blue as it melts into itself.

Gentians and Indian paintbrushes

in the meadow throw their colors

against the rocks.And the delicate columbine, pale yellow and pink, only blooms in August.