The place he always hoped to live
waits just beyond this crest.
He knows
he is close,
though a twist of cedar smoke
is all he can see of it.
Stopping to rest,
he lets a crust of soda bread
soften on his
tongue
as he thinks
how all those wrong turnings
matter so much
less
now that the end is in sight,
those nights alone
in cabins open to the skies,
that fraying rope
of muscle in his back,
the early pace
that could not have been
held
by a man half his age,
a lack of water, a lack of light.
Up ahead the evergreen thin
and straggle, tips snagging
late afternoon
mist.
The hour is lost
but at last he can see
where bare land begin
s in
a scatter of ancient till.
There among the cobbles
and boulders, in a flicker
of shadow over the
saxifrage,
he knows nothing is left
but wind to contend with.
