The Hunt Trail

We turned our backs on that fair field
Where wonder struck us still at dawn
And wound into a shaded wood
To climb what we’d set hearts upon
And morning calls of thrush and wren,
The rush of broken breaths and streams,
Played in our ears and drew us towards
The peak we’d spied fresh from our dreams

We broke the treeline for a ridge
Of granite boulders, powder-pink
And round each mound we’d twist and lunge
To clear each cleft and crest each brink
And after sanding fingertips
And knees on ground where no thing grew
I turned and saw the blood we’d left
Upon the trail, was worth the view

Then you and I came to that place
That floats flat, high among the clouds,
A silent world where gray-green stones
Are set within their sedgy shrouds
We walked and talked of fragile hopes
While marveling at the earthly powers
That raised the rocks we walked upon
And crowned them with white mists of flowers

One last incline bound our resolve
To tap the strength that sleeps within
Lives tethered to the lowland’s cares
Till called upon to rise again
And when our feet had carried us
To heights as high as mortals go
We peered over that final rim
And soared above the worlds below 

And from that perch I saw much more
Than each blue pond and golden vale
I saw we lived a life that day
Marked by the changes in the trail:
The natal chorus in that wood,
The zeal that breached that high stone wall,
The quiet musings on that plain,
The final view that waits for all