Seasons of Poetry

Mountain Rhythm

Written and inspired from my first trip the Rocky Mountains.

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The mountain range is not for the weak nor the strong,
but for the ones who feel that they have done wrong.
With its towering peaks of snow and ice,
sometimes the weather is cold and not so nice.
Rains may fall upon you and the woods be wet and dark with color,
and the ground be either brown or white as the Elk holler
songs in whistling like woodwind instruments and those of dominance
to fight and barge their other male foes to keep the balance.
Tan pine needles carpet the ground,
while down below not much snow may be found.

Atop the mountain crag and along its side
there is snow and ice, all the more making your car slide.
Cozy and shivering in your shelters near,
and by it runs a river that is so very clear.
Fantasies run free and ideas flow from the northern winds:
a cornucopia of love and tragedy that's scraped their own shins.
Magpies fly and land on your fence posts
while the sun rises and bathes the coasts―
but they are not of sea and water, but of forest and creek.
And there deep within these mountain ranges, may be something you long to seek.

Foothills climb and the leaves of the few trees that can whither
fall and you hear a call to come hither.
Despite the fog and musty breath of the furry animals, you'll fly high and soar without wings to the mountain tops so abominable,
never flammable.
Camp underneath the canopies of the shading arms of the trees and furry branches of the ponderosa pine.
Made it through the night without so much of a whine.

Dreams of love and a long lost one
set a scene for a coat around a pine cone.
Remember these days of upon us the cold they shoved
but bundled up we wet our hats and the hands we had gloved.
For one sake or maybe more
in the mountains and forests of woodland we store.
Smooth lakes of crystal clear run beneath the fallen ponderosa pine,
and brown needles carpet the floor of this forest that is surely not mine.
Even the bears didn't show for the fun,
and upon the branches our soaked clothes we strung,
available to the snow and wind,
and we left almost unblind
to unneeded emotion and the abnormal northern beauty,
where snow was layered, yet streams still ran with purity.

Colored trees of yellow and gold
with the valleys, mountains, and red-dirted foothills all in a neat but grungy fold.
Many seasons hang in the balance:
three, and those coated in mist; one coming hidden within a dulled malice.
Caverns of old must still lie within those blue ridged mountains.
Our fires are warm and blazing in orange and red fountains.

Oliver James
was not washed in the cold rains,
but then so escaped to the rocks so great and tall
to follow us softly through the cold mountain air and once again fall.
Not into the autumn that seemed to mix with the white snows and fogs
but into our hearts and the dead logs.