our world

our world

the days bent in the heat.
time poured over us
in songs.
we were a happy lot.

it was a world
gone long before,
but we fell along,
not knowing.

memories of August
hung about
our shoulders.
months of the mountains
in our legs.

we went on
and on.
each night,
nearly stopped in the dark,
we believed enough
for morning.

at the end
we didn’t know
what to do.
it was too far to go back.

we died very carefully.

(early fall, 1968, near the Laotian border)