Wake me up, in a hut before first light,
just shake my feet
as you come
down from the top bunk.
Let’s be quieter
than the rustling breath of sleepers
and early morning summit climbers.
Let’s be softer than the wood
chopping snores of
exhausted parents.
Let’s pretend they didn’t keep
us awake with their dreams
of hunting.
Instead, let us escape into
the view of early morning –
There’s a mountain
underneath us, take a look at
the coveted valley – because in the dark
someone uncoiled clouds
and laid them out, unbraided
between peaks,
hoping to gather
all the sounds
of night and the unspoken words of day
and someone left them there for the sun to pick up
the shadows
the light
the frost
the steam
dissolving
as the fingers of the sky
and the fingers of the valley
seek to hold hands
