Arrowhead

Foolishness, to think it could be explained anymore

than Massachusetts or Maine. But know this:

that its boundaries, like theirs, are imaginary and political.

That it resembles Montana and spoons

its eastward front thereto is, in truth, mostly incorrect,

or that it imagines itself what it was,

which was, before it was, almost no one’s

but the ravens’, who outnumber its people

even today. What has come to be

known as Utah is a growth upon its rump,

or it is, upon Utah’s narrow head,

a tumor fed by methamphetamine, beer,

and The Church of Latter-day Saints.

That I have never known a Mormon

I did not like immensely, except certain senators.

This can be explained. It is history.

That Idaho has in its history elected

senators of considerable greatness,

but not for a long time, not, at least,

for most of my life here and none of yours.

That the state is an embarrassment and a joy.

It has been dragged into the century

before this one now well under way,

its notions of liberty circumscribed

by fearful ideas of stricture and malignity,

usually religious, which in this republic

have not, will not, and cannot be explained.

That its rivers are among the purest

and most beautiful in the same republic.

That it was established by the republic

it hardly seems to want to be a part of anymore.

That it has a town called Dixie

and a river called the Secesh, short

for secessionist, but also a Yankee Fork

of the Salmon, and that the Salmon is its greatest river,

named for a noble anadromous fish

most wild examples of which are gone from it.

That this is in part the fault of the republic

it once prided itself on belonging to.

That it is not universally but all too abundantly

racist. Neo-Nazis and Confederates

walk its occasional streets believing Hawaii

is a nation on the continent of Africa.

Its huckleberries are unparalleled,

its mountains spectacular, and deer

are its most numerous citizens.

Some of its human citizens would rather

deer vote than anyone who is not white.

That television was invented here,

for which the state will neither be given credit

nor forgiven. That at its least elevations

the temperature will reach 120 degrees

every summer, and at certain of its summits

the snow, until recently, never went away.

That its hot summer afternoons are indolent

and perfect, winter nights cold

and often ridiculous with stars. It lies

athwart the Rockies, it is desert and peak,

tundra and valley, prairie and canyon and forest.

Its beauty can afflict you like a virus.

That much of its populace is poor and that it is

determined to keep it that way. That it is

for sale and boasts more millionaires

per capita than any other state.

That its potatoes are peerless and most

Americans cannot place it on a map,

believing it must, like the other “I” states,

be Midwestern, and that is a good thing

in many ways. That its name means nothing

but scans the same as Illinois, where

I was born and one of you were,

which can be explained, though Illinois cannot.

That Idaho, like all the other states, is history

and toil, that massacres occurred here too.

That most of its people are kind,

like most people everywhere. That I have

for most of my life been in the employ of it

and been made to feel all the while

something very like an enemy of the state.

That for some reason I cannot leave,

though my own parents are aging or infirm

many miles away. This can be explained

but not to my own satisfaction. I feel filial guilt.

Two of you have happily left the state

already and the other aspires to. That of

the forty-two people named Robert Wrigley

in the republic, I am the only one in Idaho.

There are probably more Wrigleys in Chicago

than Johnsons in Idaho. That Chicago

cannot be explained. There are 242

Dick Johnsons in the nation, five in Idaho.

That the name Dick Johnson consists of two

euphemisms for penis, and that such

a diminutive as Dick, when your surname

is Johnson, can in this way be explained. That nothing’s

in a name and wild roses are even now

budding out everywhere around me. There is

a domestic rose called Crepuscule,

while these are wild and called Rosa woodsii. That one

of you is named Jordan, a name your mother,

when she was pregnant with you, spotted

on a lawyer’s office door

in Salmon, Idaho. That you are the only

Jordan Wrigley in the republic, that your

older brother is one of only five Philip Wrigleys

and that Philip Wrigley was one of the richest men

in the nation the year of my birth. As for Jace,

the youngest of you, he is the only one

anywhere—thus once you were all the only Philip, Jordan,

and Jace Wrigleys in Idaho, as I am the only Robert.

This can be explained, this too is history,

which, like the boundaries of Idaho,

is imaginary and political to the extent

that every polity is a political construct

and therefore imaginary, with the force of law.

That law is itself imaginary and if not

universally agreed upon nevertheless occasionally enforced.

There was, until overturned, a law forbidding

a man marrying another man here, or a woman

another woman. And there was once,

and not all that long ago, a law forbidding

the marriage of a Mormon to a non-Mormon,

also one forbidding the harvesting of fish

with electrical current or dynamite.

That this, all of it, can be explained.

There are cedar trees on this mountain

older than Chaucer and pine trees older than Whitman.

That the state, though it might claim otherwise,

does not care for schools and teachers.

That in its Platonic way, the state

also does not much care for poets,

and that in this regard it is like the others.

That the only true city in Idaho has a river with trout.

That the state’s trout should be foregone

for the trout of other places, and that this

is explainable and entirely selfish of me.

That sometimes the moon risen

over the mountain summit to the East

can bring me almost to tears. The most

beautiful place I have ever been is here,

and I would pinpoint it for you

but not in this particular document,

lest others, in light of my selfishness, should go there.

That I do not understand this impulse

to explain that which cannot be.

It is possible you might have been

better off, had you been raised elsewhere,

though I do not think this is true,

beyond certain measures economic and cultural.

There are things that cannot be explained

which are vastly superior to those that can.

This document is in some way my form of prayer,

and I pray most often to certain trees.

Seeing a mountain lion when you are alone

in the woods is a terrifying benediction.

I hope you remember the afternoon

we watched from our porch above the river

twelve bald eagles circling in the sky above us.

The sound of a wolf howling is a miracle

many in the state would exterminate.

That it seems I cannot help myself.

As one of you has said, living in the state

is like living in an abusive relationship:

there is always the hope it will get better.

A woman once said to your mother

raising children in this place is child abuse.

That we understand ourselves to be lucky somehow.

There is a place we hunted for arrowheads

and hunting for arrowheads is illegal.

We did not know this, and I found a white one..

We were lucky. A man came from upriver that day,

walking along to shore to reach us.

“How’s it going?” he asked, and I told him we were

hunting arrowheads and extended my hand,

the white one in my palm. He looked away,

out over the river. “Hunting arrowheads is illegal,”

he said. He said, “No, what you’re looking for is flint.”

That guns outnumber people here

is the pure product of America, which is crazy.

That allusions are how writers congratulate themselves.

Arrowheads are made of flint: quartz, obsidian,

jasper, or chert. That making an arrowhead

requires two tools, a hammerstone and a billet,

usually antler. Also enormous patience and skill.

There are likely thousands in that place along the river,

lost among chips, fragments, and pebbles.

Today I am in the little building I built

almost entirely by myself, though each of you

helped me some. That what I mean to say, is that

love is undertaken, and borne, that it is

beyond explanation and not worth living without.

A snail’s glister trail across a leaf

is a beauty that might be transmitted

but not explained. That I have met

every governor of the state since I’ve lived here,

save one, who was interim and is now

a senator, about whom the less I say the better

(cf: lines 15–20 above). That sometimes

when I’m fishing I understand a cutthroat trout

is more distinguished than any man

who ever lived, certainly me. That I am by turns

misanthropic and generous,

and this is something I might explain.

That I have been awakened in one-man tent

by the howl of a wolf, that I have been

awakened in a one-man tent by a bull moose

splashing in a mountain lake, that I have been

awakened in a one-man tent with a desperate

need to pee, and that soon I stood peeing

at the edge of camp and looked up to see

a bear risen manlike on its hind legs—

it seemed hypnotized by a swirl

of yellow butterflies just above its nose.

That it ran when it saw me there.

It leaped a fallen log as gracefully as a steeplechase

thoroughbred and made no sound at all.

That the central Idaho wilderness

is where God lives, which is to say, nobody.

That the central Idaho wilderness is larger

than many eastern states. That Connecticut

cannot be explained. Nor most especially

Rhode Island, not being an island at all.

That according to current actuarial charts,

I have just sixteen more years to live in Idaho.

That I have found a pound of morel mushrooms

this spring, and on one mushroom hunting trip

I also found a perfect whitetailed buck’s skull,

with smooth antlers not the least gnawed by mice,

and later on, in the same draw, I saw a doe lick the caul

from her newborn fawn until it rose

unsteadily and followed her into the brush.

That the Nimi’ipuu called this part of what is

now known as Idaho “Tat-Kin-Mah,” meaning

“place of the spotted deer.” That Tatkinmah

is also the name of the property owners’ association

of which I am a member in good standing.

This can be explained, it is meant

as homage, it is history. It is also

a species of historical rapaciousness

that makes me uneasy. That I like to walk

in the woods at night, because it is impossible

not to be a little frightened by the dark.

There are very few darknesses in the republic so deep

as those we may seek out and abide in here.

The man from the electric company

thought I was crazy, when I asked

that the dusk-to-dawn yard light be removed.

That by darkness I mean nothing metaphorical,

and that by metaphorical darkness I mean

such darkness as is universal, historical, and political.

Also that the measure by which I love hating money

is the obverse of how much I like having it.

That “In God We Trust” is on our currency

and this can only be explained ironically.

I do not know what liquidity has to do with money.

This is something I wish I could explain.

The song of the brown-headed cowbird

is sweet and liquid, and the many-noted

call of the meadowlark makes me entirely glad.

The bugle of a bull elk is ethereal,

and the scream of a mountain lion

primal, and once at a bar, given the choice

of being killed by a grizzly bear

or dying in a head-on collision, I said

bear, and this is explainable. I am now

recovered from such romantic nitwittery.

Your mother would rather sleep outdoors

than in, and that her elegance mystifies

those who know this mystifies me. That for me this is

only explainable in terms of Idaho.

That the female great horned owl’s hoo

is deeper and more masculine-sounding

than its mate’s. Years ago I glanced up

from a page to see out the window

a bald eagle, holding its place in the air,

in the midst of a snowstorm on the Clearwater.

in the middle was several feet above my head.

That I have killed a dozen rattlesnakes

for straying into the yard you played in,

and that I have skinned one and hung its skin

on the wall above my desk, for which I will not be forgiven.

Once I found a dead calf moose

so festooned with ticks it looked scaled

instead of furred. That I have found

nearly every animal in these parts dead, except the raven.

That I have imagined myself dead

in the woods and not been dismayed by the thought.

That, as you know, I collect bones

and make widgets and bird perches from them.

This spring there has been a raven

who likes to sit on the porch rail of my shack,

and I thought for quite a while

he was watching me, before I realized

it was his own reflection that fascinated him.

The fascination of birds is magical.

When the deer here are fatting up

in the fall, I can hear them chew

the withered, nutmeg-smelling dry blossoms

of the shrub called oceanspray.

That in winter I will often have an apple

with my lunch and toss the core

toward the usual two or three does

who take shelter in the thicket just west of the shack.

There are fewer people in this vast imaginary

polity than in the miniscule borough of Manhattan.

That all of this is meant as explanation of here,

this place, which is called Idaho, green and golden,

and I am in the mercy of its means.

Fern Hill Road is a scant twenty miles

from where I sit today, on Moscow Mountain,

and these few acres where I am are called mine,

upon which—I tried to count them once—

there are more than four hundred trees.

They are red fir, juniper, aspen, and hemlock,

but they are mostly yellow, or ponderosa, pine,

and the wind in this yellow pine forest

sounds oceanic though it’s miles from the nearest sea.

These yellow pines’ millions of needles

are reeds, they are literal woodwinds, a thousand-acre

weather-breathed bassoon. That it seems

what is most beloved in Idaho is what is also most resented:

that it is America, and American. This

too can be explained; it is history, which is political.

That everything American is political,

even its trees: the immense cedars older than Chaucer,

these hemlocks and pines. Seconds ago

an enormous crack of thunder came, though the sky here

is clear. The storm is out of sight,

north of the mountain, but as its hard wind comes on,

it sounds like no other wind in the world.

And that, my dears, may not be true, but it can be explained.

That unlike me the trees here know only here

and do not hear their music. The wind

is bound for Montana heedlessly

and without knowing how or why. The sky

is its apolitical upper state and one of its clouds

can weigh more than the mountain’s Chaucer-old cedar.

There is a mathematical formula

to calculate the weight of clouds, but there is no formula

to measure love (not even mine for you, though

it seems more than the planet itself) nor for this place,

where I have, as we say, put down roots.

remaining in the lower republic: that this is why it is what it is,

and where you have each, in your time,

come of age, as I did too, but belatedly, a grown man,

midway through the first half of my life:

I’d fallen asleep on a long, flat shelf of stone on the edge

of a high mountain lake and awoke to see

three coyotes watching me, no more

than twenty feet away, wondering

if I might be dead or dying, probably hoping so.

I opened my eyes and there they were.

Wind riffled their fur, their black noses twitched.

When I lifted my head they ran away,

and when I rose to a sit I saw a trout seize a fly

from the surface of the shallows

just as the reflection of a many-tonned cloud passed

overhead. This is simply what happened,

but it may also be why. I fell asleep on that rock

because I was exhausted from the hike in.

I had never been so weary in my life before.

I was alone and very lonely, only one

of you was yet born and he was still a baby.

Nevertheless I vowed that you, then you, then you,

would see and know such things as these in your lives,

that they might be a counterweight

against the other, outer, imaginary and all-too-real

nowhere such a nowhere could survive in.

Just remember: that in another history, someone else was here.

That some mountain lakes and certain rivers

are hardly different now than then, when someone

shaped this perfect white arrowhead from quartz.