we answer slowly listening gently
for the footsteps ahead then
follow the smell of Cape May bush
bends toward us along the path up
the river’s bank here, where impepho* sprouts
there, where we lay our backs
on sandstone, the weak winter sun
soaks our skins warm this mountain
once stood full under sea’s reach
the wind sweeps across it whistling
through stone to sing all the whispered
stories rustling in its caves under its
granite ledges
smell the buchu, child taste
the camphor see how the silverleaf
sighs in the wet June light
a voice i cannot name reaches into
my spine and sings out into the hollow
below my ribs i stay
lying flat, skin to sandstone eyes to
clouds sinking further still into the silence
learning for the first time
how prayer and listening are
two names for the same breath.
