my little boat and I drift along
as the morning sun hatches

through cascades of pine and early
oak, past tumbling ravine-mouth

and solemn lagoon, and then enter
a pool with one high bank that looks across

to a tidy beach of pebbles, each a different
shade of silver gray. Atop the taller side,

a pyramid of sharper stones rises,
a monument piled to a knee-high point

in memory of some lost sage or suicide,
and I stop and paddle back, then spy

a path-head just beside the thing. No text.
I tie the boat there to keep it company,

and climb into the forest, then up
and up, winding back and forth across

an ever steeper cliff. Even the pines
give out before the trail does, and soon

I find a tunnel into the rocky
shoulder the mountain turns to me,

impassable in any other way. Inside,
the grotto roof is bloody red,

but no story comes to explain, and so,
when the cave opens out at its other end, I

climb on, and push and drag my ancient
bones with feet and hands along the path

and then, at last, with elbows
and knees. On a broad plateau,

a rocky meadow sprouting tufty
weeds like an old man's beard

welcomes me to rest, and I lie
on my back, and gasp and laugh

at my old body that still
believes it is young, poor fool.

A fool but a happy one, it corrects me,
and I'm happily reproved. Up here,

the sky surrounds all, rinsing
rocks and weeds and one old man

with bright light and a cool spring breeze,
then drying us all with bright whitest cloud.