Jenna Wysong Filbrun - Lost Creek Wilderness (Communion)

Jenna Wysong Filbrun’s “Lost Creek Wilderness (Communion)” is both an ode to wilderness and to the sacredness inherent in it. As the year unfolds its green months and the snowpack starts to thin in the high country, there’s no time like the present to find truth and healing in the great outdoors. We can do so anywhere, courtesy of Jenna’s tremendous poem. We can follow her meandering lines like the switchbacks of a trail, find ourselves as holy as the earth we tread upon.

Lost Creek Wilderness (Communion)

If you come up above the tree line,
———–be like the boulders
———————-balanced on the tundra.
———————————Drink the silence
———————-between the gusts of wind
———–that push the clouds
near your fingertips.
———–Say a prayer at the altar
———————-of impossible vastness,
———————————of permanence
——————————————–beyond ground and sky.
——————————————————-It will take all
———————————your breath and strength
———————-to come up and every resolve
you possess to go back down.
———–But do this,
———————-as often as you do it,
———————————to remember.
——————————————–You belong by being.
———————————You exist in the memories.
———————-Only a few of them are yours.
Here, all the holy ones
———-breathe, even
——————-the rocks,
—————————even
——————————you.

Jenna Wysong Filbrun

Jenna Wysong Filbrun is the author of the poetry collection, Away (Finishing Line Press, 2023), and the chapbook, The Unsaid Words (Finishing Line Press, 2020). Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and have appeared in publications such as Blue Heron Review, Deep Wild Journal, EcoTheo Review, and others. Find her on Instagram @jwfilbrun.