Elephants in Starlight

I remember the elephants, outlined in starlight. We were aware of each other even in the dark, quieter than one might think. The nocturnal Mara, never asleep. Alive when others are dead, a disappearing began to teach. So it is that I am less . . . in full attention of others.

We travel east, under hawks, through mountains. The Allegheny river took me further than I expected.

unused atlas
and glaring sun
yet I know the way

And hotel rooms always feel like a gift waiting to be unwrapped. Sleeping together becomes new and old, a nuance that plunks down through the layered stillness of what is. You toss the pebble and I watch it vanish. I'm sorry, darling. Promises, promises . . . I am trying.

Trees and leaves and boulders and grasses and tiny unseen universes all blur as we pass. Water falls from the mountain's bent wrist as if waving to the place we just were, and weeds become valuable for their flash of color in the on-going whirl of green. Does image sweeten the distance between here and there?  I've tasted the asphalt and it remains as stones in my mouth.  

You know, this journey is not Kenya. Or Ashtabula. This is the ancient new in between the arrival.  

after
always this
beloved