. . . the wind has passed over it, it is no more,
And its place acknowledges it no longer.
—Psalm 103:16
I stand at the end of my walk
and look back.
The grass gives no sign of my arrival.
I lift my foot.
The grass springs back
and leaves
no impression that I’ve passed this way.
The fiercest mountain man,
fluent
in scat and blaze and blood
will find no trace of me
though he read the rocks
the creeks
the sandy shores
along the way I’ve come.
No touch
that will show up
where I ran
or fell
or dragged myself along.
Nothing is disturbed,
dislodged,
upturned,
to signal who has been here yet.
The grass rises back
the wind combs it straight again
so no one will ever know
I’ve come along this way.
8/31/2020
