Mountain Ramble

I come to this place
overlooking the river canyon
where the distant ridges
slope skyward to snowy peaks,
where clouds lined-up moving east
spread flat on the bottom gray,
white cotton billowing on the top,
and like wind a faint sound of water
can be heard when no one speaks.

This place I come to
has a history of dead trees,
burnt snags, overturned rocks
and a certain amount of mystery,
naked woodcutter, headless woman,
hidden teepee, and an herb farm.
Any deer path or open space
might lead to adventure.
Birds are everywhere in the evening.

I come to this place
for peace, a silence only wilderness
can provide. Pine branches,
Manzanita, deer prints in mud,
a mix of Coyote brush, last fall’s
dry fallen oak leaves, and damp
dark places under logs rotting.
Flickers darting in the treetops.
Skyline undulating like an open sea.

This place I come to
in starry night, cold, snowy white
or hot in summer, still, in August
quiet in altitude, Haystack Peak
Sequoia Gigantia, or Beaver Creek.
Here I seek words like granite
under ice or morning grasses
in sunlight. Where everything
is compassion for the masses.