ON HUNGER MOUNTAIN

by Peter Marcus

 

 

Somewhere on a wooded slope, I heard the word, look!
And when I did, the granite masses held their alien silence.

How the mind drones across the blood and the breath
of ferns gauges time in passing. I climbed Hunger Mountain

in the lead-dawn light alone, but only went part way.
Take heed to yourselves that ye go not up.

On a gravel lane near the trailhead, a hilltop church beckons
those with earthly panic. Those chosen who willingly

submit to holy rescue, guided back or shouldered by a faith,
and led away from where they strayed. I came down

from Hunger Mountain more alone than when I’d left,
not yet having learned the vernaculars of praise. Still within

a timeless spell, I was sheltered in a small pine-chapel
where a prayerful shroud of wind in balsam swathed me.

 

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