---

a lucky reservation for one night of lodging and a late dinner — made by telephone months earlier, but just barely early enough,

choosing sweaters to wear to dinner as the June Sun
finally sets / you and i match in black cotton ramie, always and still, my favorite

hungrily watching the clock, in the Great Room, nestled in the same chair by the colossal fireplace

we’d been camping the previous night, in a thunderstorm and downpour at Bridge Bay,
where we awoke to a bison’s grunting, and their immense shadow upon our tent;
we shared our griddled french toast breakfast and percolated coffee with a couple in a VW camper, who were no doubt younger than you are today in June, 2024

with our “Wildlife of Yellowstone” booklet, we identify an osprey perched above our heads in a pine tree as we pack up our camp — a first, for each of us

mudpots, fumaroles, bison herds, bison “jams”, pelicans, waterfalls, canyons, elk, towering basalt columns, sulfur, a wild river, geysers, marmots, hot springs — and Morning Glory Pool.

so many firsts, for me and you.

your shining, smiling face[s]
around that table
by candlelight

what a gift, what a day, what a dream
to share this exquisite meal with you, two,
in such a truly wild place

is this real life?

the clink of silverware
voices and laughter centered — and from every direction,

imply, “yes”.

---

---

authentic amazement, contentment and delight saturates, expands contagiously

after dessert, i suggest, then implore that you journal or sketch your day — or work on your “Junior Ranger” program — while i write our postcards, at quaint wooden desks tucked into the cozy nooks of the Inn’s interior veranda /

though it was so late, nearing midnight and
we, all, are exhausted from the unrelenting travel, wonder
and exploration of the last four days

---

---

the radiators in our room hissing and clanking through the June night; the Teddy Roosevelt era mattresses (& the ghosts); communal bathrooms; an adventurous — not sound — night’s sleep for me; but you two, you both, just slept right through it

then, waking up to summer snow in June! this, more magical than Disney — that Kingdom now diminished, for you, forevermore —

the east, the south, and the north roads, all, closed for snowfall and plows

so, then, Glacier instead!? Montana — first, due West, by way of Idaho, then north, it is! Jenny Lake and Colter Bay will wait — our reason to return again, one day soon / but, a too-long, six-year delay /

i map and guide our route with a road atlas | i will plot our joint course literally and figuratively — for a while, more, ok?

and, in mere days, you

will be ten years-old.

and, that,

and this,

was all

real life,

my June and always, Sonlight.

---

---

---

---

---

---

*the author traveled with two point-and-shoot 35mm film cameras on this trip; one for Fuji 400 black & white film; the other for fuji 400 color film