Pete Dunstone

Portal

At fourteen thousand feet the air and my head feel cool and clean, the world expanding on all sides. Part of the descent is rock scree, best tackled with a sliding motion—a mini avalanche of volcanic debris and dust. So many people have done this before, the mountain must be getting flatter. The air thicker now, pressure and heat rising.

A guy I met a few days ago has been watching me through binoculars. He’s never seen anyone come down the scree section so fast, and has written this down in his notebook. The mountain has the reputation as a place visited by beings from another dimension, and I wonder why I was so keen to get down from it.

He invites me in to his trailer for tea, immediately showing me where he hides his rifle, telling me about the people he meets, finding fireweed and wild iris high in the Sierras. On a limestone outcrop, hollows worn smooth and deep by centuries of grain pounding, spirit dancers scratched on a rock blackened by smoke.

sweat lodge
cool pebbles
in the stream

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About the Author

Pete Dunstone has had a fine art education and many different jobs, finally resting in horticulture. He likes plants, automata, woodworking and birding in the UK’s Somerset Levels. His poems have appeared in Blithe Spirit and The Haibun Journal.