Pain always finds you. In a fast car traveling away from the one true comfort that your heart desires. In the first steps on the trail to the mountain peak. In the fear of falling during a boulder scramble. In the mantras you chant as you make yourself as small as possible against the wind. In the zen state of physical exhaustion when you reach the summit.
Pain always finds you, but so will peace.
Then getting back down the mountain is easy.
just my luck
pain waits
crouched in the valley
like the crooked eyetooth
of lovelorn dog
a wounded lapwing
with a drunkard’s song
pain waits like a prayer:
we are bound in the trance
of recital
pain waits
free on the ridges
like a limestone waypoint
lit by cobalt stars
a faded drifter
in a rusted car
pain waits in your voice:
a sweet sound with no chance
of survival
pain waits
gilt on the edges
like a mourning cloak
on a feldspar draw
a curling ribbon
for a sunbleached craw
pain waits like a prayer:
in the sweet by-and-by
Lord, by-and-by
(04-OCT-2018 – Mt. Katahdin, Maine)
