It is Good for Man to Be Alone / Yazan Alali

When one has finally strayed so far along

The little path beside the river, worn

By the current to a muddy shelf

With not much more for width than will permit

A bootsole—grabbing horizontal trees

Above one’s head for balance, sunken in

The steep hillside, the panicked roots exposed—

That it opens up again to marshland wood,

And one has finally shrunk the sound of cars

To nothing—and nothing made of man is seen—

The stomach sinks. One sinks with mighty rest,

Like some enormous laborer caked with mud,

Only his eyes and his eyewrinkles white,

Collapsing recklessly upon his bed.

The greater rest belongs to great exertion.

Yazan Alali is a student at the University of Michigan Dearborn.