A Blessing

We pitched our tent and built a fire,

settled in for the night, just a short hike

down this broad swath cut into the forest

to string lines of communication through,

lines to points of civilization further north

from points further south from whence we’d journeyed,

three boys off to climb a mountain

“because it was there” and we never had

and we wanted to. What did we know

of needing reservations and crowds of other boys

as eager to climb Katahdin as we were?

What did we know of private land cut through the forest;

there were no signs posted, no warnings of illegal acts,

so we pitched our tent for want of a place to sleep

and a mountain to climb, undeterred and determined.

Night darkened as dusk turned to dark

and dark to darker still, as we ate in silence,

simple food from cans keyed open, hiding our fears.

Above us was the moonless sky and a swath of darkness,

a moonless trail itself, pebbled with stars

we stumbled over, as youth do on the dark path

to the loftier heights that is their goal,

that is their lives, other mountains still to be climbed

beyond this one that lay before us.

And as if to acknowledge our intrusion,

our foray into nature’s realm, small as we were,

the sky became alive with the Aurora Borealis’ glow,

these Northern Lights rarely seen by boys,

particles charged and charging the night sky,

giving life and light to illuminate us and our way,

alive and pulsing and reaching out to us

about to conquer, not just Katahdin’s peak,

but ourselves on a darkened trail stumbling:

a blessing, perhaps, on our youth,

our youth disappearing into adulthood,

disappearing into ourselves, alone and afraid.