Naissance

Poem I wrote over 5 years ago, on Mt. Kilimanjaro, shortly after 9/11, for someone on the other side of the world from me.


NAISSANCE
Kilimanjaro Day 4. Kibo Hut, 7pm

Today I saw a mountain exhale cloud
the way a baobab exhales heat
in mid-afternoon savannah. I saw
cloud mist rise
from the face of Mawenzi, swirl
and settle, fatten, condense
to ponderous cumulus.

And I thought how you
would enter the mind of the cloud, hear
the conversations of particles, know
the intricate dances
of droplet and gas. Beloved, today
I saw a mountain give birth to a cloud
and the joy in my eyes was my eyes
seeing it for you.

Today clouds stood still as silence
below me. I looked down
at clouds
shading their own shadows
on the mountain. I saw
the canopy world half-way
between me and the plains. I watched
the birth and afternoon prime
of clouds, how they gave birth
to shadow, how shadow
lay on mountain, how
the mountain
spoke the clouds.