Gold Mountain

Copyright 2008

Along the tree strewn ridge on a sparkling fall day
the light glistens on the rocks and the cool breeze
ruffles my hair as I stride the wonderland that is the Blue Ridge.
Now and again I catch a glimpse of distant valleys
bejeweled with lakes, golden in the afternoon sunlight,
beyond them distant ridges of hazy blue which melt into the sky
thirty miles distant.

It is a time and place of revelation,
when the clock means naught and time is held suspended
like a thought in a tired mind at days end,
while I walk these ridges in the warmth of gratitude
and hope in the future of a troubled earth.

It would not be hopeless were Nature in charge
and man but a player in the cosmic game.
But taking to himself the fate of the globe
smashing and staining, his hands drip with
blood drawn from mother earth.

I wonder as I hike these ancient hills
if even they will escape that day of reckoning
when mountains smoke and
oceans boil like cauldrons.

I wonder if man will somehow open his jaded eyes
and see.

But then, across the valley there, a hawk glides
on thermals that carry her high on the dusky wings
of this blessed day and I smile
because hope will not go easy.