The opportunities to make our way

            Abreast were few –

            Even so, not taken –

            Out of preference perhaps,

            Or under the influence of the terrain,

            The lingering spell of narrow climbs,

            The wending through thickets and

            Clambering over the stumps of the fallen

            We kept within earshot,

            Exchanged leads without formality,

            Gathered for meals

            At the closest thing to a glade,

            Not tarrying

            As I stepped

            It was more than the racket

            Made from moving along the earth,

            The footfalls and breathing

            That broke the unintruded order

            Of the forest, but how,

            I thought, I carried my silent clamour –

            It was incessant, for all of us

            I’m sure, even when we spoke,

            Contending thus

            And everything alive around us

            Pushing under the sun’s slant light

            Through the unfinished canopy

            Only when we reached the river

            Tired, questioning, knowing

            We would have to cross,

            Its implacable sonority and flux,

            Were we crowded out of ourselves