The Trail Companion

Spring 2000

Wild Lit

Monte Bello

Devavani Chatterjea-Matthes

A moonless night is following
swiftly at our backs
Contorted live oaks:
darkening hieroglyphs
of themselves.
We are descending switchbacks
into a canyon, learning
a song together.
I sing a fragmented line,
You sing the next; irregular
music falling away into
the dark like scraps of peel
revealing something
essential
that makes us content
with our struggling song,
the cunning trail,
the falling night.

Devavani was born and raised in West Bengal, India, coming to the U.S. ten years ago to study at Mount Holyoke University. While an undergraduate, she studied mangrove ecology in Belize, sparrow behavior on Kent Island, Maine, and sea urchin development at the University of Rochester. She is currently a graduate student in immunology at Stanford University. In her spare time she enjoys reading, writing poetry, cooking, and being outdoors. She is married and lives in San Jose.

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Comings and Goings - Christopher Woods

The Trail Companion

Spring 2000

Wild Lit

Monte Bello

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