You said take a hike so I took one,
Fording the rushing springtime rivers
Out into the Appalachians.

I crossed the Chesapeake water basin
And camped down in ghostly
Winter brown battle fields.

I went on pilgrimage with ethereal
Leaves and waylaid with gravel stones.
I bit left over bullets from

Brother against brother struggles.
Did such a fight boil over as a
Husband and wife tiff?

When I reached the mountain top
Down by Harpers Ferry, I watched
Waters distill themselves

And run into the Potomac. I gazed as
The clouds rolled off into the Atlantic.
I surveyed the diving killdeer

And the haphazards of the chipmunk.
The world is a constancy that moves
Like hydrogen atoms in the sun,

That sun sets on my backpacker’s eyes
And I find forgiveness below the
forgotten stars of forested lands.