Mud sucks at my feet
Trickles between my toes
As I follow your beckoning voice.

The sustained sound of
percussing water
grows with every step
And between dried
branches of fir trees,
I find you.

That smile,
Easy and light.
You reach for my hand
Lead me down steep terrain
Until the canyon bursts into heaven

Blue skies beam down,
The sun winking through stray clouds,
But the temperature cools.
Water dribbles down the stone walls
spurts up out of the clay-colored ground
Trees are green here,
stacked on the coliseum of rock.

I tilt my face upward
to the arrogant, misty beauty
of cold, clear water
strutting in perpetual mid-air tumble
Before splashing onto on the rocks below,
Joining the stream
and riding its current
though boulders, dirt,
and time.

I catch a glimpse of you

Taking in the exact sight
Still
Breathing quietly,
as my instinct knows you have been
for as many moments as it’s taken to
catch.

‘everything above is beautiful
but crumbling,’ you say,
‘but everything around this water…
you can see how it nourishes everything,
even pummeled by the sun.’

I see past your expression
Feel the reverence etched
Into the hesitancy of your voice

‘it’s like people.
you thrive around those
who nourish you’

The ground seems solid,
everything around me bigger
And I know
in this moment
that the precipice I stand on
holds you too

two people
One ledge
In the mountain chain of the world

I tighten my hand on yours
take the moment in deep
every drop
every crest and line of the stream
the consistent hiss-pound of water

And I know it’s filling you
in the exact
Shattering
Awestruck
Way
It’s filling me

“yeah,” I say,
my exhale is lost in the water.