An Outing with Friends, A Poem of Self

At the foot of the mountain, we stop climbing.

We’d go higher, but the guard at the reservoir

says we look like arsonists.

—Why should we start a fire? Perverse suspicion,

a system against people at every turn.

We change our route to the dam,

strolling along, eyes open for any joy.

A dry reservoir’s extraordinary,

its desolation a blank screen

—huge sweeps of green adrift with clouds.

I might walk on water, casual as the immortals

—well, no matter. What counts

is this: one step back, we’re just landscape,

dissolved into nature—joining vastness,

the shuddering wind that bears sweet fragrance.

Wildflowers, scattered like glittering, starry eyes of earth,

only mark us off, saying

nothing human’s so important, neither the fading friendship

nor the marriage burned to ash, all past.

Not sure about you—what was finished

I cast loose. These days

I see the mountain as mountain,

yet not mountain; I see water as water,

yet not water.