Base Camp

Unseen from here, the
summit, in a cloud, anchors
the landscape.

It is said there are corpses littered
among the crakes and crevices along
the pilgrim's path to atonement.

Let me walk among the thoughts, the
footsteps, the crawling supplicant's
prayers to reach the place where
climbers found the unimagined,
the windblown, the face of God
that insists on another

chance.

Let me be where you are, the
subside of a mythic mountain,
among the survivors who
recovered

love in the scree of

yesterday.


Caroline Shank