We walk the map, the
contour lines & trails woven
like partial solutions to
puzzle of brush and
wizened stone.

Water over rock face
carries us upward, chests
racing to consume the sky, feet
alert to palimpsest of trail.

We write our story
(almost)
invisibly in the mud,
the pillowy sky, the snapping
grass of autumn’s
early dawn.

We carry out
what we carried in,
leaving to the landscape
a thin film of presence
like ember in dying campfire.