Wednesday, April 08, 2020

NPM 2020 - Mountain Cairn

I've collected rocks since I was a child. I like to pick them up when I travel as a small souvenir of places I've been. I also like to photograph rocks and rock formations. I find cairns particularly interesting.
Cairn in the mountains of Tibet at 5000 m (16,400 feet)
May, 2007

Genesis 31: 45-46
“And Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a pillar. And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones; and they took stones, and made a heap..."
It's not much
this heap of stones
made by human hands
marking a trail
echoing a traveler's shout
“I was here!”

I grab a pebble
near the cairn
turn it over in my hand
slip it in my pocket
committing this mountain
this place
to memory

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2020. All rights reserved.

That's it for today. I hope you'll join me again tomorrow.

2 comments:

  1. Here's to the altars we set up for memory... what will we remember from these days? What can we slip into our pockets?

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    Replies
    1. That, my friend, is a really good question. I've been watching Shtisel and seeing the cemetery with stones on the graves really has me thinking about the permanence of memory.

      Thank you for being here to read and respond to my poems.

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