Lost Field Notes - Mountain of Obsidian Pine

We left the fence wire rusting Near the creek where the cattails bend Cut a trail with a borrowed blade Said every map forgets the living And the creek keeps carrying leaves Past the places we carved our names Like the earth don’t mind remembering Without needing us the same At the end of the road Is a mountain of obsidian pine Where the black bark drinks the weather And the roots keep better time Every path gets folded under Needles, frost, and climbing vine At the end of the road Is a mountain of obsidian pine The deer trails change with every season Stone by stone the hillside slips Whole towns disappear to thicket Without a sound beyond the crickets And the creek keeps carrying leaves Past the places we carved our names Like the earth don’t mind remembering Without needing us the same At the end of the road Is a mountain of obsidian pine Where the black bark drinks the weather And the roots keep better time Every fire burns down to lichen Every shadow feeds the vine At the end of the road Is a mountain of obsidian pine And the creek keeps carrying leaves Past the places we carved our names Like the earth don’t mind remembering Without needing us the same At the end of the road Is a mountain of obsidian pine Past the washouts and the gravel Past the county warning signs And one day I’ll walk there quiet Same as every living thing has done before me Through the dark beneath the needles Of the mountain of obsidian pine