The first sense you have is of the isolation
and how disorienting it feels
to not see anyone, even a stranger.

You wonder if really you are alone after all:
Perhaps someone is down the trail
and you have not heard them yet,
don’t know they are coming,
aren’t sure if it will be someone you know.

Then you sit on the dried out log
near the scattered ashes
telling yourself that your senses are enough,
that they are accurate,
that you have not missed anything
and that, really, you are alone.

A slight breeze,
relieved no doubt by being out of the sun,
runs through your hair at your neckline.
Dried leaves,
still hanging there from last year,
intermix with the thick mid-summer leaves,
adding an undertone to the dizzying,
showering sound.
A bird flutters in a nearby blueberry bush.

My breath still catches
remembering the story of KC
snatching that rattler and
tossing it down the dune
from up on the forest ridge.

The breeze pulls my attention back
and points to the little lake.

When I was a girl,
you could see the green water
with its dots of swimmers and triangles of boats.
But now, the trees block the view.
You need to wait for fall to see the little lake.
And then, turning around,
you could see the big lake, too,
with its stripes of darker blue
and more blue reaching back,
back to a foggy brownish blue
and up into the sky
and wider than all of Earth.

It was a good view for a god.
How can you understand
anything anywhere else?

Then another rustle,
and you wonder about the time,
confused
if really you are alone after all,
standing there on this hill,
in the middle of nowhere,
where your memories
are so alive, and waiting