The sandrocks must have sighed a name again:
an aged form is shuffling toward the hills,
hunched over from his heavy, sacred pack.
Tomorrow I will face the rising sun,
for blessing as I climb to bring him back.
I know what I will see among the rocks
for I have tracked these elders in the past.
I'll find him tired, resting on a ledge,
and staring centuries of wisdom, not
aware that I am standing by his side.
I'll ask him to rejoin us at the fire
and share again the stories in his bag.
But he'll refuse and say that he's been called
to sit there by the piles of weathered bones.
And then he'll slowly lower his pack and say
that I may take it back to the campfire
and set it in the place which had been his.
I'll shake his ancient hand and lift his pack,
and he'll reach out to touch it one last time.
He'll lean his head upon the sandstone wall
and watch me as I start back down the trail