EL NORTE

                                                Photo by Axel Hütte

Going north means going

into something deeper than silence.

Mist hangs for hours in the woods

and the apparitions singing in dreams

know places we will never see.

You will know you are north

by the edges of the day

and the slight aura surrounding the trees.

Something in your muscles will be trying

to remember ancient directions,

the way into old hunting grounds,

and if you died and someone

threw your bones into the water

they would swim together

and form a long arrow pointing north.

  

                                                               Michael Delp