A summit in Slovenia

A Summit in Slovenia
by Philip Gross

Five thousand feet up in thin air. Tongues
of last year's snow sleep in the gullies
under pine-litter like a horsehair blanket.
More lichen than needles lasts on the trees.
A cloud moves through the woods. It brings

dull bells of drop-eared sheep. A cuckoo
mocks itself. Somewhere up in the mist
is a line: the mountains shed their names
and become Italian, or Austrian. Forest,
frontiers alike, the cloud slips through.

There's a chapel, with cardboard icons.
Four hundred Imperial prisoners of war
lifting the road, coil by coil, to the pass
went under an avalanche: the Tourist Board
translates for English, French and Germans.

There's a beery hut. The man behind the bar
pilots a radio dial to catch the midday news
in any of five languages, all garbled
by a sound like crumbling scree. We're too
far up, above it all; reception's poor.

In the woods, the ants are building empires,
ziggurats of pine-dross, towers of Babel.
They need only a flagpole; I plant my stick.
Hundreds swarm up. At the top, they wave
then blunder back, wagging antennae: Brothers,
turn back! It's all a terrible mistake!