Switchbacks up the mountain, loose stones sliding on the narrow trail. A church bell rings from below.
I turn off the trail
at a boulder's shallow overhang that may have been where a shaman hunkered once,
waiting out a rare rainfall.

A vague image appears,
made on a vision quest
                                   before

     Poseidon               
              cascaded
                           down
              the brain's maritime
                                        channels.