Rick Kempa: "Call It Ours"

All we want is a path
just visible
in the new growth
of the forest floor.

We do not require
a thread of cairns
to mark the route.                                                       
Leave it to us  
                                                       
to find our way across
the swollen stream
to get our feet wet
if we must, to

blow past the bend
in the switchback
misread the map
become aware

too late that we
are lost, to move
this way and that
kneel in the dirt

to sit at last cross-
legged in the dusk
while the stars emerge
one by one each one
 
a blessing, to sleep
beneath those stars
and in the first light
find our way back

or forward it won’t
matter because we
will have found it
and can call it ours

"Call It Ours" by Rick Kempa. Originally published as "All We Want Is a Path" in Keeping the Quiet (Bellowing Ark Press, 2008). © Rick Kempa. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Art credit: "Self-portrait: Looking out at the Emmons and Winthrop glaciers [near Mt. Rainer]," photograph by Luke Humphrey.