Climbing Kuwohi Alone

All morning I climbed through oaks,

losing count of myself.

Somewhere below, a voice I used to trust

had said this would help.

I am still deciding whether that was true.

🥾

Above a certain elevation, grief

runs out of room to be large.

I have carried mine this high before,

and stood on quartzite so long undisturbed

it has forgotten every century since its own making.

🏔️

I put my hand on it

and felt nothing answer,

and did not ask it to.

A bear had come through at dawn.

I could tell by what was driven into the mud,

going about its life with no thought

of anyone else's.

I have always loved that about bears.

🐻

On Kuwohi I stood so long my legs

began to belong to something else.

Carolina spread below into a distance

that holds no opinion of anyone standing above it.

🌄

Spruce stood dead and bone-bare among spruce still living,

and I could not tell from where I stood

which ones still believed in continuing.

It did not seem to matter to either.

🌲

What I came to leave, I left.

I am not certain where exactly,

somewhere between one rock and another

on a mountain that will still be standing

after my name has gone from every mouth that held it.

🧗

That is all I needed to know,

and I did not know it

until I was already going down.