I let this wilderness excavate my soul
Hard edged rain thrown from a raging sky
Cuts quick across the exposed contours of my neck
Hair gathered and whipped across my eyes
And I will kneel in this dirt and beg to
Be stripped down to the throbbing core
Of what it is that
We really are.

A crack of mountain thunder
Vibrates along my spine
And the wind even bends the tallest bodies of the pines
Who reach their trembling arms high
Above the cliffs
And I am still clutching at the darkened sand at the edges of this
Storm-whipped lake
Heart beating wildly, half-afraid
Of the violent power of this wild space.

But here, finally, in ecstasy,
Like one released,
I find that I am face-to-face
With the missing pieces of my soul
Cut off in jagged edges
From the day that I was born,
And it is only in the presence of haunted,
Exposed wilds
Sometimes high in these cliffs,

And sometimes in someone’s eyes,

That I find myself again.

And so, like one who is often blind,
I extend my hands out into the darkness
Fingertips aching to find
Another spirit that is formed of mountain storms and
Rages wild.