noun: A solitary wanderer

I think of you when I learn this word
for a solitary wanderer, for one
who hikes alone—

though your routes often find you
on familiar trails, though you sometimes
have company on your sojourns.

But you’ve covered so many miles
solo on foot in your long life, more,
I think, as pilgrim than nomad,

more at home in the mountains
than in your homeplace in the flatlands.
I see you as a perennial explorer,

delighting in what nature offers
in places as familiar to you as breath,
as open-hearted as sky,

a backpack voyager, whether alone
or with others. And we who love you,
who eagerly listen to your tales

of the wilderness, some of us who
accompany you on the footpaths,
over mountains and through meadows,

are all the richer for it.

•••

(for Ed Cole, my intrepid hiker friend,
soon to embark on another adventure)