When I was very young

We used to live at a gas station

Not far from the state line

To the rear of our small house

There were the Black Mountains

Which was something of a misnomer

As the peaks were snow covered

For three of the four seasons each year

My father owned a blue and red gas truck

Which he tended to park away from the station

For obvious reasons as lightning strikes were common

 

When I was six a stranger with a thick mustache

Stopped at our station as he had developed a flat

He handed my father a white envelope

And instructed that I should not open it

Until I was twenty-one and unmarried

I waited for the next fifteen years

And on a rainy October day

Examined the contents of the envelope

I found a note that was ink faded but readable

It read

 

He who knows how to breathe the air of my writings 

Knows that it is an air of the heights 

A robust air 

One has to be made for it 

Otherwise there is no small danger one will catch cold

The ice is near 

The solitude is terrible

 

The following day I ran away to the sea and have never returned

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ice is near

The solitude is terrible