Wilderness Lost

Do you remember the naked desert?

time flowed to rock 

Do you recall when this rock was better than that rock?

When the wine was so foul we watered the sand with Gallo red?

You left a clay figure of hopeless to melt

abandoned in the cold of winter desert

old Saab sliding up hill and down 

building momentum to crest the summit to Saline valley

opening up to  

sky and  rock

to the soulless cold of desert night

to Death Valley in winter 

Our journeys into the darkness were ways to find the light

So often we went from alone together to just alone

You on the path out... me on the path to wildness 

The long high hike alone, with Tolstoy for company

The high ledge and million star sky a lifelong touchstone

I lay on the stone and fell into the cosmos 

always there 

in my stony heart 

always there 

my high granite bed 

under the yawning sky 

there were signs that said turn back. 

a hawk screeching and flashing talons in my eyes, 

stay away 

    stay away 

        stay away 

I kept on 

Stepping over a downed log I a wasp stabbed me. 

electric shock snapped my head out the hike and into alert. 

signs to turn back? 

challenged to go on

I hiked

Hawk and wasp echoing

widow maker limb fell 

crash bashed across the path

just a step behind

A pause, a shrug, an extra breath and I'd been dead.

Instead I hike on alone 

three warnings

before 

I found IT 

on the stone bed in the night. 

I found solitude and Tolstoy.

I hiked  

    one hundred miles 

        one hundred miles 

alone

now and then the same 

now and then connected 

all I've carried 

all these years 

connected

to song and soaring grace 

found in the backcountry

I carry it all 

blessed

and still alive!