Day 7: Salt Lake City

A nice little hike up by Red Butte through
Scrub oak only found here in the Wasatch
You reach a place to rest the locals named
The Living Room because they arranged
The slabs of rock into couches, loungers,
And chairs. You can sit in the Living Room
The city splayed out below for your
Entertainment.

To the west where the lake still licks against
The salty mud flats, a stream of planes
Rise and fall, fall and rise in controlled
Chaos.  Your eye, caught by a glinting flash
Of reflected sun from a car on I-80 follows
The road in to the center of town where
Skyscrapers, toylike, like some miniature
Village, cluster at the bottom of the hill
From the black-copper-domed state capitol
Building


You look in vain to spot your own house,
Squinting at the cluster of buildings that
Should be where it is, but you are unsure and
Uncertain if that really is your tiny dot of
A house.  But it has to be somewhere there
The big roads you can identify easily and
It just has to be right there.  Your interior
Map making is disrupted by the cold nuzzle
Of a dog who wants to be friends by snuffling
Your neck and then snorting. "Rupert!" A
Woman shouts and you stand up quickly,
Petting Rupert on the head.  He is a big,
Rusty setter with a lazy eye.  "It's all right,"
You say petting him again.  "It's all right,
I need to get going anyway."  You smile
And leaving Rupert and his human, you
Descend