Quien Sabe Mountain

 

Not a trail leads to Quien Sabe Mountain.

No way to get there, no river to follow upstream.

No one to ask how I lost you, who lost you.

No lessons learned & learned again.

Who’ll stand up for me when it’s my time?

How’ll I get to the other side,

Lost in my head, as weakness fades?

Where’ll I camp? Is my notebook dry?

Wandering in radiance of avalanche scree,

Nothing to extinguish––

Not even the grapes of thought

Beyond annihilation & eternity.

 

 

San Juan Mountains

16 July 1998

 

 

[Published in Quien Sabe Mountain:

Poems 1998-2004. © 2004 by Jim Cohn.]