housing

Walls of light

Standing planes and panes

Like prisms akimbo to light

Have held me rapt here

With skin in the game

Comfort be confound in coy

Contrasted by temperate untouchables

Hot like colors

Never seen lightning linger long

Enough to picture

Over iron mountains, topped mesas,

Yet you can smell the rain too, can’t you?

Miles away, the ions spin colliding

Into calm air-

Fixed for change.

We were warned,

Senselessly.



Painting by Jasper Francis Cropsey, Catskill Mountain house, 1855 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The Incantation of Sprung

The ringing had to have been

the resistance of air in being dissected

with a rugged swung scythe.

A crude way to make matters worse.

Should we speak up

so breath can chime in and tune on its own
accord to T for truths, sinews,
or sing along so we know

where we were going
when it is over?

Souls dissipate most visibly
when the sun is a mere

ten degrees above the arc at the end of All

and they blush as they come
into vulgar exposure.

The vertiginous extension of body

feels its mineral composition,

just as the mountain has long since
gathered here and crumbled there

under the broom of wind and whistling.

The wait is the same atomic gravitas

so we make music on its shoulders,

conjuring notes we hope will

carry,
raining colors in a natural spring

Forward marching over the detritus
of the Others
calcified fragments, ground in silt and 
carried by such quick sand.

To hear and to be heard over the years

something so sharply.

Watercolor by Karl Bodmer (1836) Assinboin in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Elevation in feet

From those dark mountain valleys etching destiny

like palm lines

We conjure up rain and ropes,

tethering our dreams to vibrant green acres of horizon

radiating our perspectives of

voluminous bubbling energies under

entropic skies

over there.

If only

we had more energy,

if only

more time...

We would make it up

and over and climb higher to see

what is

over the top,

finally.

The other side

is sleep.

Painting by Winslow Homer, In the mountains, 1877, in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Pele

Leaching lead mountains

Bled where scabs crust with healing

miracles to make

Image credit By Game McGimsey (http://www.avo.alaska.edu/image_full.php?id=5927) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Tying rainbows on Mt. Moody

Up there-
rolling in cumulus
open fields,
tumbling down with
empyrean echoes-
they sniffled
there
and heaved a last great sigh
before resting
as simply shaded shapes
or hanging
thunder clouds.
Where
they lay
their puffy heads atop
the solemn iron mountains,
they reflect
your steely glance in silver volumes
of sharp light.
And slice right through
grey matter
with gentle insistence
by ninth degrees.
Up there
the birds begin to
propose,
always asking
hopefully...
They then spun
a soothing song
across beryled acoustics
waving conductive wands.

That is where
the avians weave bows
in the rain,
seeking to tame
those tangled tresses
inherently
cast over cold
granite shoulders
where shale shawls
lie stoic
dark and morose
under the mercurial masonry,
They are
always adding color,
muffled and soft
unflappably
making rainbows
with nothing but stone and air
up there.

"I try to think about rainbows when it gets bad,  

You have to think about something to keep from going mad." 

-Gwen Stefani (In My Head, No Doubt)

Image of Mount Rainer in Washington state, US, By US National Park Service (http://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery.htm) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A Pinnacle of Stony Tries

A Pinnacle of Stony Tries

The mountain started it.

Imposing its challenge

upon sky and sea.

I must accept it.

I am compelled to conquer.

I've become drawn to touching,

sharing senses,

exchanging skin.

Stoicism is a rock.

Yeah, right.

Both are metonyms,

found in caverns up high,

like oxymoronic holes in the sky.

Spelunking down the spyglass,

on stalagmite stairs;

pointing the way

in collected columns,

that climb

like us.

Rocks feel pressure,

cave in and crumble;

like grains of time,

an avalanche of life,

too much for itself

to hold it together.

Ascending I dare to grapple,

with textures and temperatures,

gradients by degrees

of warmth rest

in the velvet granite

flesh, accepting,

caressing sand paper cheeks

I trust the friction.

Finding my weight

propped against the mass,

I hold the balance.

The weight erodes, sloughed

in pebbles of problems;

raining by rocks in applause,

anticipating their early release,

from master sculptor,

whose has been a model prisoner,

Medusa obeying and repelling.

A climb is not a race.

A scale includes the middle march;

all possible paths, knobs,

and steps fossilize.

Planning each step,

I am pulled up by my own

labored breath,

my stomach in knots secure my spot.

I am too heavy on myself.

Yet,

the higher I get,

the further away,

I like to stay

because now I can see

all that I've known,

becoming strange, deranged.

I strain to focus on all that is,

and it clearly became,

miniature and small.

It is meaningless,

without this fight

to keep holding on,

even if I never make it

to the top

and Fall,

forgetting

all about

looking back

down

at the waiting world,

I found my wings

while giving up.

Image By George Edward Mannering [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo of Emmeline Freda du Faur (1862-1974) first female mountaineer in New Zealand. 

Terra Firma

The mountains spill their dirt downhill

And the hills give up on the valleys

The palette mixed of mud and will

With wanton erosion to appease

Nothing one can keep for good

All things betrothed by buried Earth

In all trees being equal to wood

Why the emeritus mirth?

See the mounds abound the domain

And the offspring shoots rise above

No human souls whole may remain

If which no one should love

And take notice of roots strangled in fear

And the green lights trying to escape

What could grow without a drop of tear

If the soil won't stay in shape?

*Inspired by "Love's Philosophy" by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Image By U.S. Forest Service ([Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Elkhorn Mountains, Oregon.