Suddenly you were there,
at one remove
(however you calculate distance),
unexpected,
unimagined,
unforeseen,
pristine and unsullied
by prior interaction.
A poet with a claim on me!
Whose path had also brought him now
to this selfsame ledge, to look out
over the tops of full-grown conifers
and aged bristlecone pine.

You had words of your own,
and you offered them to me—
could there be a greater gift?
Who lurks in these words?
I looked
and found a poet
and a man
stepping back
from prior engagement
to consider again
the import—and impact—
of his words,
of his patterning of them.

What you have wrought
has been witnessed
(if lightly);
you have left a trace
to distinguish a perspective.
Science, you said,
is a literature,
and literature a science,
and those who choose between
them choose a diminishment.
I think my fervent flood of words
has baffled you as often as
delighted, but you read them,
you read my tangled trace
and followed it a distance
until it diverged from
your own direction.

Destination, not destiny,
is what calls,
is what excites pursuit
and discovery,
and my attitude of gratitude
for the connection
derives in part
from the unlooked-for generosity
of a poet—
another poet!—
dedicated to
but not lost in
the solitary journey
of rough ascension.