Granite Basin

Granite Basin by Sofia Fall I used to run up there on Perseverance Trail when I lived in the apartment  on top of Gold Street where it met Basin  Road and all I had to do all day was run or walk for miles in the rain and try to think of nothing except false hellebore holding droplets on its pleated leaves in perfect viscous spheres. It was early in June. The only  person I knew in the whole drenched town had taught me that false hellebore  was poisonous to humans. It causes  the heart to slow, induces vertigo. I couldn’t  stop picturing how it would feel to chew the leaves to stringy pulp and watch  the mountains go blurry and succumb to the mists that always enveloped them,  until it was all dizzy and invisible, me and the narrow trail above the gorge through the illuminated valley. I wanted my heart to go so slow no creature  could discern its beating. Instead, I just kept running, tried to make it every day all the way to the washout without stopping, ran faster so the hellebore became so smeared and green in my peripheral vision it glowed. I hated having to live every moment in real time, always seeing with utter clarity. I hated letting every single leaf of that abundant verdant poison go. Only the bears ate it.    Poetry Home Art by Robin Young