Ascent
When we emerged at last from the trees,
the earth spread out before us in bowlfuls.
This plateau was not the top – the hut
was merely the uppermost human outpost:
steel sheets becoming slow
copper, a sun-raked corrugated cover,
a rusted latch, a stacked low circle
of rocks. Water clicking softly somewhere.
Inside the hut: benches, a table,
a stove and kettle, pans and tins,
the polite request to leave without trace.
But some yearning nudged us upwards.
Gorse, stitched by the light, wove fences
and trees tricked us. Our guide was the gradient,
our tide hauling us up from depth
to where stiff rock shimmered like pools in the sun.
How grateful our faces then, as if chosen –
exposed to something more than the wind.
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