Please enjoy this beautiful offering submitted by Writing the Wild reader Sarah Kotchian.

Seven miles doesn’t sound far
until it’s uphill to 10,000 feet
with a pack;
I’m not as young
as when I climbed here last.

This could be the last time;
we never know.
I didn’t used to think this way
about last times, about next year
but now I do, after more friends die too soon.

Two older women stop to greet me
on the lake shore.
One is hard of hearing;
the other says they lost each other
for a while today,

again are found.
Now they have lost their tent,
that is to say, they cannot find it;
I remember a pale yellow glow in the trees,
lead them there.

They tell me they meet to hike each year.
Wish I may hike to high places
when I am 80,
wish I might camp in wild lands
with women friends.

We will watch Perseids tonight,
send up silent wishes
from sleeping bags around the lake
as each meteor flares across deep water,
disappears.