The Dry Descent

She hears a cry – the lamentation of a dying woman.  She turns, strains, to see.  

No one.  

She staggers on scree and falls heavy on her back; her poles bent useless after two thousand miles.  

The sky is a moribund blue.  The cry of a loon, disparate and distant, rises from the lake below.  Her eyes affix on a turkey vulture above, gliding lazy, on a current of air.  

Her tongue cramps.  Her eyes rack out of focus.  Every dehydrated move pops into a paralyzed pose.  She knows it’s doubtful someone will hike through before morning.

She waits unblinking.  Unmoved. 

“The most regretful people on earth, are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”

— Mary Oliver