Tinselshimmering

[I wish the formatting had been preserved on this one...I had it laid out on the page in a more interesting way...but too lazy to redo it all here]

Tinselshimmering on the edges
of my vision
from twelve miles downhill
not enough food
cold radiating from mountains
forty pounds cutting down
into my collarbones.

Almost-fasting on a spirit journey—
thirty days in the wilderness
just roots and berries
and red leaves blooming
among the green like flowers.

Late cicadas skitter their
rattlesnake warning
frost is coming
life is dying
as it does every year—

Each year
it is a tragedy,
each year
everything fills itself brimful
with living and goes out
with a flare

And I don’t go or stay
I just walk, walk, walk on
following where my feet lead
down untrammeled meadows
up these deep grooved routes through
cottongrass
timothy
and fescue
arnica aster and blue
gentian pressed against
curves of crumbling stone
away from windchill
that strips warm moisture
from my breath, leaves me
parched and speechless

I gulp down the cool taste of nothing
wipe it on my face
it permeates my pores
trickles down my veins
like rain down roots of trees

The empty-belly feeling is only starting
it can be pushed away
like sounds into the distance
in a crowded place
when you fall into a poem

And standing empty
and sweating
onto summit-rocks
I think I might
melt into them
leave behind
all these swishing-sounding
layers of nylon
become transparent
a shimmer of existence
against granite
hardly a disturbance
in the fabric
of the landscape
for the rest
of my life

That would be wonderful