There is a mountain
[in New Orleans, it’s called the rising sun]
in Slovenia called
[Borning? Gensia?]
Rodica.
We hiked it often
[he dragged me to the beat of the monstrance watch].
Once a year, we returned from Africa. Summer holidays. We practiced. For one week, every day, every morning up the
[Castle].
Got to train those leg muscles, train them to the slopes
[There’s a land all slanted sideways and the folks all walk one way and one of their legs is shorter than the other because the whole land’s all slanted sideways but they say they’re walking straight ‘coz they’re used to the slopes and one leg shorter one leg longer feels all normal there]
or else it’d be dangerous to hike
[more than 45 minutes and a 5-minute rest by the monstrance watch].
When you get tired, accidents happen.
Up the white pyramid mountain above Rut
[the Clearing]
[Deutsch Geroit? The word doesn’t exist. Deutsch Ruth? Who knows. Memory fail].
Colony celebrated 800 years in 1218
[no, 2018, years reversed].
There is a mountain, its peak a white pyramid, not for snow but the bare rock
[limestone]
above the gnarled low-slung crawly conifers
[krummholz /ˈkro͝omhōlts/].
Hard to believe it’s been two years. This last year feels like it hasn’t been.
I need
[ow lord, won’t mi dal en ten dollar kufe,
moji frendsi majo vsi starbuckse,
I must make amens, amens],
no, not a ten-dollar coffee.
Who needs a ten-dollar coffee, that’s overpriced.
I’ve tried.
It wasn’t worth it.
Wasn’t what I needed.
Need’s the wrong word.
It’s a memory day, a light a candle day
[and the sun rises in the west].
I asked for a chai latte regular
[but in Korean, that doesn’t come through]
and the mask didn’t help.
I didn’t order a tall ice latte, but it will do. After all, it’s here now, like me, my memories, and you.
4 agosto, a hot août. En Mittwoch.
—Luka, in SKorea