1.

For twelve miles,
we hike with a weight
on our shoulders, leave
nothing but the prints 

of our heavy-lugged soles
as a signature, a penance,
as evidence of a single 
day's passing.

Morning, you say, "I dreamed 
you danced with Coyote," 
and all day I check over 
my shoulder to see nothing 

but wind, dancing 
in ferns.

2.

How a stream writes 
with an eraser...

How a mountain suggests itself
behind fog...

3.

The forest folds itself into a map;
a compass spins dutifully north;
an altimeter hangs like a pendant
around my neck as we hoot all day
for spotted owls across distant,

unnamed streams and broken-backed
ridges angling away into fog,
constantly aware we never know 
exactly where
we are.

4.

I imagine cranes 
far above 
this thick forest,
carrying summer 

on their crowns,
while we shiver 
in the darkness
below.

5.

A calypso orchid,
a strong scent of bobcat,
a nibbled salmonberry twig
cut at a forty-five degree
angle, penny-sized millipedes
coiled into themselves,
scattered like spare change
across moss so green
it hurts to look.

6.

How mountains bloom
beneath a calm sea...

How a bud holds a year
in a clinched fist...

7.

I find myself,
following old trails
across unsteady land,
the earth giving away
at my steps. 

You follow me;
I follow them -
the deer - they know
which way; their thoughts 
stamped into lines.

I'm stopped where deer
change their minds,
where a trail fades 
into toppled trees,
where I look over 
to you and ask,
"Which way now?" 

The question hangs
like lichen in the trees.

And you look around 
as if you've found
holes in your pockets
and needed seventy-five cents
for the bus home.

8.

After seven days in the Quinault,
the truck still revives with a turned key;

the war still spills from speakers
like rain. "I almost forgot

there was a world beyond this forest."
The tires crunch heavily on gravel.

In one hour we'll travel further
than one week of walking.

I can almost hear my footsteps 
filling in on themselves, 

twelve miles upriver.