I.

In 1910, the denizens of Wellington

awoke to a thundercrack and lightning

at the base of Windy Mountain:

in seconds, a snowpack

overhanging the east portal

in the Cascade Range

gave way to a tumult,

which skimmed the Bailets Hotel

and barreled into the Tye River Valley.

Ninety-six carcasses

were pulled from the wreckage

of the Spokane Express and a mail car,

placed on Yukon sleds

and lowered down a cliff at Windy Point.

Today, a sign at the edge of the ravine

lists the victims from both cars:

a nurse from Sacred Heart;

a sheepherder from Trinidad;

a handful of lawyers and salesmen;

a writer by the name of McGirl;

an eight-month-old infant;

countless young brakemen.

Scattered among the ruins

are rusted boilers, pistons,

valve gears, chimneys,

and sandpipes curled around trees–

overlooked by snow sheds

with collapsed walls,

suspended in rebar

like rocks in a spider’s web.

II.

A protest was raised in train 25,

snowbound in the depot on the way

to Skykomish.  Two lawyers escaped,

slid down the switchbacks

below Cascade Tunnel,

hurling end over end

to the bottom of the gulch.

There, Jesseph and Merritt

sipped whiskey from hipflasks,

content to have survived the petition.

III.

Ida Starret was discovered

at the edge of the chasm

between a hemlock tree

and the crumpled car,

her infant son stilled to silence

after hours of crying

under her bosom

under the snow-laden boughs;

Providence decreed

her second son would live,

a stick cut from his head

in a makeshift ward

in the enginemen’s bunkhouse.

IV.

You brought me here

among the ghosts, among

the ruin, you knew

what I might construe:

and still you wait for me,

to see what I will carry back with me

from the valley of injured children.

The wire burns between my palms,

your face eclipsed by a wild copse

above the cliff;

what could you expect?

I bear no artifacts for you,

no leaves from Bhutan,

no relics of the True Cross

no cuspids from Siddhartha’s mouth,

no secrets from the severed veil;

I only bring my own catastrophe

ascending toward

the Iron Goat Trail.