D’s Bones

Clear and cold,
a bubbly tongue of water speaks
of the pass a thousand feet higher. The way
rises through melting snow, rock grottoes,
basins of nodding avalanche lilies.
Marmot whistles tingle
the thin air.
We climb steep snowdrifts
to grassy ridge tops
southwest of the pass,
lunch over swapped stories
more truthful
because we are
here.
(No. 86 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of [...]