Out There

Do travellers need to know

that the land we tread

has meaning in this world?

I look for the landscapes

where it seems as if nothing

has ever happened in human time,

where time slows into aeons

and where geology beats history.

Here people cannot grasp

what surrounds them.

Underfoot is a quilt of mossy lichen,

crackling from dry air’s suckling,

in front is the sea’s pewter patina,

behind are the gaze-deep mountains.

I understand only that there is no sense

to be made of such indifference:

awe and wonder shred religions’ pride.

Only the flow of water from high

to low connects, makes life current.

 

Here is a river to take me back

to the alien game of human meaning.