BLUE MOUNTAINS

Modest as mountains go, they have a charm

in that close-to-home majesty, surmounted

by a spine of falling away bald rock,

dangerous as any siren song of

explorer’s imagining, with plenty

of room for the solitude of empty

spaces, charcoal of centuries-old campfires,

flint arrowheads, where the way up, or

the way down, is bare rock, falling away

to deer paths, miles of unbroken forest,

and mountain springs, a few with tales of

darkness and death from the French and Indian

War; others, nameless, follow the dew

of daybreak, with far wider waters than

ever came forth from the mountains;

a mere dream, perhaps; yet recurring

and compelling, focusing a vastness

of sky and mountain many streams wide,

as sheets of water, transparent, of a

source never part of the physical

adventure, vivid and inviting,

untouchable, like a wild mountain chorus,

yet with bend of the road contours heartfelt,

ancestral, and as familiar as any hamlet

of the valley; and far reaching, and

unbridled as a new idea, free and

streaming sunrise and shadow

of clouds passing.

— This poem appears in the September 22, 2014, print issue of National Review.