Pilgrimage

I sit, this morn, on the bed of A dried-up rivulet, Head-bent and full of compunction. It’s clam-quiet except for the impatient Squawks above which prompt my heartbeat. I raise my head, heavy with grief. Climbers and weevils align in a silent choir, Singing with precision the lines of a forgotten Mirth. It’s 5 o’clock in the morning — a time when Cockcrows are loud enough to wake the dead. I cringe and slink as I traipse about in the dead woods, Among the cadavers of river plants, decimated, Deserted, and vitiated through seasons’ flagrant ebb. I see shadows that sing with their mouths tightly shut. Like them all, I, too, am lonesome, and I draw about me The dry waves of parched waters. On my lips is a certain prayer — a revised edition of the Paternoster. Return, waters, return from the underrocks, I pray thee. My sorrows are old and fragile. Hoots and cries and stridulations beseech me. I have picked my way among paths that Cuddle the feet in sympathy and soothe The souls that hide from the earnestness of Sunrise. Wash my dry naked feet, O waters, And grease my palms so cracked from Endless chafing.