Artemis Templation

A poem

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Look at the other bank:
a dirt track like this one.
Take it in this silence,
the alarm flaring in my mind
for only a few minutes.
This stillness doesn’t belong to our age.

I think of staying the night
on the other side
across the water.
A filament of joy unwinds,
the pull is strong
to turn back into the centuries.
I don’t mind if nature is brutal.
She tempts me with freedom
clean, distinct, perfecting
for the night drawing near.

The invitation holds.
It is the mountain speaking—this mountain nearby.
Death replies with a playful smile.
Hidden from danger, the line runs
well beyond the far bank.

By ruling out the rest, in a matter of weeks
you’ll find the gods themselves here.
If absolute, extreme silence is kept,
the trees will attest,
the tender and the centuries-old,
bodies of time after the ore
and the first iron.

Think your supplies through:
a bush knife, a lighter,
dried fruit, a few angler’s tricks.
You have another body 
waiting at home.
Unless, meanwhile, you’ve died.

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