Notes Toward a Mountain

At the sight of distant hills
something restless moved within me.
I followed a rhythm not named,
a private summons
beating faintly in the heart.

The path turned and returned on itself.
At places, marsh.
At places, stone and thorn
that tore the skin of intention.
Yet the summit persisted,
reappearing in the mind,
insistent.
I walked on,
inventing the way as I went,
ignorant of jackal, scorpion, snake.

Now the ascent.
No visible track.
What had seemed, from a distance,
marvellous
stood near at hand
as brute accumulation,
tree and rock without promise.
Water spoke everywhere,
yet showed itself nowhere.
The cries of animals
merged with birds,
with the thin friction of wind.

Let me pause.
Let me speak sense to the heart.
Why should what appeared miraculous from afar
now instruct me in fear?
My shadow lengthened beyond me.
Perhaps it was already evening.
I advanced slowly,
breathing the weight of the moment,
appealing without words
to what surrounded me.
Silence answered, discreetly:
a little further.

I went on.
The image once carefully drawn in the mind
lost its edges.
Another layer settled over it.
The body slowed,
but the distance shortened.
I continued, still.
Dusk became night,
yet the feet refused rest.
Hands learned stone,
roots,
the tenuous mercy of vines.

At last, the summit.
The body declined all further argument.
I sat on a rock.
The eyes moved outward.

Far off, villages flickered
like hesitant thoughts.
Morning arrived.
Fields emerged, green and complete.
Fatigue withdrew its claim.
On every side,
a condition approaching wonder.

Again the heart stirred
at the sight of those trembling villages,
drawing from behind the fields
the scent of first soil.

But then—
what is this?
A dark point at the mountain’s foot.
Another beginning
contained within the end.
The mind hesitates.
Shall I descend into motion,
or remain
where arrival has already begun to fade?

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