Pilgrimage

We brought our tired bodies to Buttermilk Falls.

We found the land was tired, too.

The sun had pulled the water’s song up and away, spinning sky-cotton.
The trees transmuted crystal and clear into green and soft.

The gorge was hoarse, and we nodded
yes, it would be nice to sing, but our
throats are dry, too, and there are too many people
walking on our chests.

Thirsty like pines, we ripped our roots from the ground
and laid them in the gasping waters.

Got quiet.

The land loves itself, even when its roar is quiet and splintered.

Swallows tumble on invisible strings,
tadpoles, black like seeds, gulp and wriggle over
yellow ocher rocks.

The land loves itself in water snake and whip-quick fish.

The land loves itself in crayfish corpses, ghosting over sand.

The land loves itself in waters warm and golden refraction.

Could we love ourselves, too?

In shaky legs, in slumping shoulders?
In ache, in ebb, 
in the unraveling of born-this-way?

We brought our bones to the waters
and loved our selves by insistence,

the way waterfalls create themselves,
carving their own cradles.