Mile 5—
Seven Utes Mountain
And I am rocked in a bowl of sky below Neaha-no-xhu, the Nokhu Crags, in this dappled just-after-
sunrise still chilled here at the end of July over 11,000 feet into the stars. Where am I? The woman
ahead of me stopping, handscoming away from her face covered in blood. I am balanced in a now
in between sunbleached rocks and grassesbacklighting like knives.
I am 5 miles into this 64-mile day and already doubting my existence. Mountain made of flowers in
the shapes of rocks, dirt that smells of sky, these runners more possibly than maybe and I want to run
with them toward the night andnot have to breathe anymore, know this body is just a feeling.
I follow the pack over the ridge and cannot hear my feet. Maybe I am still in my tent. Maybe still in
that hospital, feeling I will be 14 forever if I can stay under 100 pounds. I cannot forget those years
ever happened. There is still aboy with scars up his arms inside of me. Who knew a boy who loved
a gun more than anyone. Don’t we all want to break into light sometimes. In the thin alpine air, I
hear a runner say, This is Seven Utes Mountain, so what’s an Ute?and I want to run because I need to cry.
We are still here. But don’t we all want to leave footprints somewhere to beremembered by.
The ridge tips, vertigo into shrub and tree, and runners avalanche around me. I hear This is why we do
it and I’m notsure what This or It is but I can’t keep a sugar-dizzy grin from my face as each stride
becomes a lift, tilt, fall. All wewant is to arrive, and then start off somewhere else to arrive again. We
want to believe there is somewhere worthrunning toward. We want to run so long the running-
toward becomes a running-into a world we can believe canbelieve in us—
Mile 14—
American Lakes Trail
Off the ridge and the sky again
blooms
in aquamarine, a wonderful shiver
when vertigo rests a velvet paw
on the back of your neck
look up, look up, look up an up that is down quiver the sky
shiver me blue
sing willow, willow blue
and the day is still golden
Here is a runner singing the trail with her trekking poles
ver-ti-go, ver-ti-go let it go swing low
pronghorn, black bear, moose
let me run behind her
let this day unroll velvet and blue beyond time—
*
My god
here I can see forever trail wrapping around a ridge
miles of mountains stretching
into Wyoming a backbone, a cradle
the Continental Divide
and here I am
smaller than the wildflowers underfoot
I reach out my arms
the day wakes, stretches, and walks on
What would it mean to be awake be a wake be a ware
of this constant smallness push me to my knees
I could cry, sometimes
I can feel so found when I realize I am so lost—
*
All these strange feathers northern flicker, cliff swallow willow, willow
no violets here to tell me when it is spring no fireflies in summer
but the rivers all thicken here too in June
I remember
watching for flood wanting, sometimes
the holler to be swept away
don’t we all long for an apocalypse
sometimes the starting-over would be so much easier than keeping-on
a bag full of hospital bracelets
to think
I thought
my worth could be measured by the size of my wrist
by how many ribs ridged shadow in the light
there was a time
there was half a lifetime I never thought
I would live past 30—
*
There was a boy who built a world smaller than he could fit inside
either he or the world had to break open
O-
-pen sometimes the world is too much
Sometimes I want too much
lying in the river shaking with the want
to be helpless and small again
to break into smoke and stars
to give in to the flood
sometimes it is all I can do
to keep moving forward on this trail what does it mean
when you want to kiss each tree
each small flower because you were locked inside for 5 years
breath and footfall rocking down the trail
body and heaven break me open
with the beauty
of some small yellow flower
there is nothing holier than dirt
there is nothing
I could want more
than to run this ridge forever beyond time—
Mile 33—
Hidden Valley Trail
Breaking out of trees into a rockslide boulder field
explosion of granite all around me and I am lost.
No sense of scale.
Rocks larger than houses, all
sharp edges and flat surfaces and I have never been
more aware of my small soft self.
The world fractures into this crushable heart.
I cannot go forward into the rocks. I cannot
go back. I cannot go back. I cannot. I have to go
forward and I do, holding my breath, watching
aspen on the other side shake an avalanche of hands
a warning and a welcome
joined at the root.
Alisi, grandmother, watch me now
kvlesteyeti I plead
kvtehtalesti I pray
watch me now Alisi now
*
kvlehsehvskv I step, and now Alisi
kvtvnaseni I crawl
hold these rocks still let me not
shiver them let me not shift them
let me float the air over them
between them let me pass through now
kakilawhiskv I go up
kakilawhiskv I go up
all these boulders a parade
of black horses
saqilivnekv’nvke
all whisper still hush now
you have them caught in the door of this moment
with a dream of sorghum sweet and kaheuhvskv I believe
in you and I am through feet on dirt again and kvleclegv Alisi
I thank you grandmother searcher whistler speaker stone
red bird deep rose sweetgum bone back into the forest now I go —
About the author
Lucien Darjeun Meadows is an English, German, and Cherokee writer born and raised in the Appalachian Mountains of what is now Virginia and West Virginia. An AWP Intro Journals Project winner, he has received nominations for Best New Poets and the Pushcart Prize. Lucien has received fellowships and awards from the Academy of American Poets, American Alliance of Museums, Bread Loaf Conferences, Colorado Creative Industries, Goucher College, Kratz Center for Creative Writing, National Association for Interpretation, Southern Illinois University, and University of Denver, where he is working toward his PhD.
His work has been widely published, including recent features in the American Journal of Nursing, Appalachian Heritage, Beloit Poetry Journal, Ecotone, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Journal, Narrative, Pleiades, Poetry Daily, Shenandoah, and West Branch. He has contributed to several anthologies, including A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia (University of Georgia Press) and LGBTIQ Poets on the Art of Teaching (Sibling Rivalry Press), a Lambda Literary Award finalist.
Lucien currently teaches at the University of Denver, serves as the Prose Editor for Denver Quarterly and Poetry Editor for The Hopper, and lives, writes, and runs in Northern Colorado.