ALONE, THE TREMBLING GIANT
By Jai Hamid Bashir
Photography: Austin Diamond, VisitUtah.com
Under a canopy of an unwed heaven, I sieve
warm air for a weather report. A Hindu fire blooms
in Fishlake National Forest, the wet root and lungs of
bluest-dark. Where I am camping solo, masked owlets
mew and welcome trespass. The strength of their silver
cries reminds me that all desire is like mine:
an endless hunger. In the cradle of my tired head,
in the caught breath of my tent — maybe the labyrinth
is a better metaphor for life than the maze?
The maze has one possible outcome. I was once lonely,
almost married. Now, hiking through glowing bark
of aspen hemmed to not be apart,
I step into naked light;
moonrise bends on skin —
on sable dapples of stars.
Jai Hamid Bashir, born to Pakistani-American immigrant artists, is from Salt Lake City. Bashir has been published in The American Poetry Review, Guernica and Black Warrior Review, among others.