“A Long Pour In Short Order” By: Christopher Watkins

A Long Pour

Driving from my side of the mountain

towards the Black Mountain

on a cool Sunday morning,

draped in colorless afghans of fog,

it is sometimes hard to believe

in exuberant joy,

in anything other than blue contemplation.

–

The memory of black birds

skimming the mist like cataracts,

the indistinct masses of trembling trees

straining towards some brief sponging of sunlight.

–

From within the rumbling cubicles of our cars

we gaze through rivulets of evaporating raindrops

towards the coming summit,

and when we break through, the hot asphalt welcomes us

as a hot skillet does a cold pad of butter.

–

My morning began before my shoreline saw the sun,

arising to the clattering chortles of my daughter in her crib.

I’ve lived a full day already today,

and still my work day awaits;

the descent down the warm side of this mountain,

the next ascent awaiting—

the rip-winding snakeskin

scale of Monte Bello.

–

I feel the laughing glances of the reservoir

on my disappearing back;

the lashes of the mountain on my cheek.

Suddenly, a mother deer

and her beautifically awkward doe.

Suddenly, a flash of coyote.

Finally, the winery. For an hour, I am alone.

–

Soon enough though, the staff begin to arrive,

the bustle begins; foils cut, corks pulled, wines decanted.

And already I am ready

for a long pour

in short order.

Christopher Watkins is Ridge Vineyard’s Monte Bello Tasting Room Manager and writes the vineyard blog 4488: A Ridge Blog.