[after Stanley Plumly]
From this side of the canyon
the hikers look like toys
mechanical dolls on a track
faster on the down,
weary with experience coming up.
Forgotten in the canyon dimensions
and as they round the switchback, lost.
You’re tired, Mama, frail,
and we—intent on the colors, the target
the danger of rattlers
of dehydration—forget. We don’t know
anymore
that it was you who started us on the trail
running with us to the cool green pool
at the bottom
through Indian paintbrush, the earthy fragrance
of sage, and all around us the story: erosion
and uplift, cold secret caves
ribbons of heat
the mystery contained in a rabbitbrush.
There is nothing here that does not
speak of consequence, and time eternal;
delayed illumination. I have
not seen you
nor loved you enough, and never more than
now as shadows rise
on the walls
and we climb to escape them.
