Calm and peaceful hike
But I have to ask myself
Why are trees hiding?
Spring’s promise of life
Takes on sarcastic shadings
Before fall’s hammer
A blanket melted
One of life’s loopholes exposed
Deep-cover agents
Puffy land-clouds float
Hide their dangerous orange teeth
Until the sun sets
Absentee ‘landlord’
Occasionally peeks down
“Now what have they done?”
Stacked layers recede
Layer after layer like
Some Japanese print
Warm air envelope
Nurturing my slow ascent
Laughs and disappears
Cold knives slice at clothes
At the edge of the moraine
And yet we linger
Why put these dreamscapes
In a land where nothing lives
Where only fools see?
The shadow stretches
From this vast mountain sundial
Marking time for stars
