The Desert Mountain

Your ancient, angled granite face just seems to peer right down,

At empty river gorge below; your red rock seems to frown,

How many people you’ve seen in all your years of time,

Who’ve looked upon your beauty and your attitude sublime?


There is one single group of grasses hanging from a ledge,

Which seem to all but dare you to just push them off the edge,

But gives you human quality the way your rocks are tiered,

Two eyes, a nose, a chin and now the grasses form a beard.


And as I view your visage with your look so unconcerned,

A thousand years and more and I imagine what you’ve learned,

That people come and people go and all must seem to be,

Just searching for a fragment of your fair tranquility.


And now I must be going, but before I leave this place,

I wished to let you know that I will miss your craggy face,

You’ve given calm solemnity amidst the stress and strife,

And brought a concrete quietness I’ll carry into life.


Peter Lowell Paulson

November 16, 2010