A hiker’s reality decays under bright skies as madness takes root in this surreal poem about isolation, memory, and the mind unraveling in the calm of a mountain morning.
Cairns Along the Ridge
The morning breaks in gold and blue,
a trail of dust, a sky pulled true.
The summit waits, the path is clear—
no danger yet, no trace of fear.
The granite hums beneath my tread,
a rhythm only in my head.
The birds sing sharp, then not at all—
a silence folded in the call.
I pass a cairn, then one more stacked,
as if the stones retraced my track.
Wasn’t that pile by the bend?
No—must be where the map said end.
The air is clean, absurdly still,
the pines stand crooked on the hill.
They lean as if they’ve learned to hear
the things that sane men never near.
The sunlight starts to feel too bright,
each shadow etched in scalpel light.
My heartbeat thuds inside my shoes,
a metronome I didn’t choose.
I speak aloud to mark the real,
to name each tree, each slope I feel.
But names feel thin, the words decay—
like ash that drifts, then blows away.
A face in bark, a whisper thin,
a rock that breathes beneath the skin.
I blink, and then it’s only stone,
but why does stone feel overgrown?
I stop for lunch beneath a ledge,
unwrap my thoughts along the edge.
The sandwich tastes like moss and steam,
and memory flickers like a dream.
Was I alone when I began?
Did someone walk beside me then?
A shadow keeps just out of sight,
it trails me wrong but feels so right.
The cairns return, again, again,
like echo paths inside my brain.
They spiral now, not in a row—
a labyrinth of rock and woe.
I hum a tune I’ve never learned,
and watch the sun begin to turn.
It flickers—no, it’s just a cloud.
The sky is blue. The sky is loud.
The mountain breathes beneath my feet.
The trail is gone, replaced with beat.
I find a cairn shaped like a face.
I nod. It nods. We share a place.
I feel the world unwrap, unwind.
I’m deeper now inside my mind.
The trailhead waits. I feel it near.
But who will I be standing there?
I created the images for this poem with Midjourney v5. Thank you for your upvotes and follows.