High Worship

Above the lowly metro din, we climb through earnest efforts to slopes of grouse and goats. Where skies brim pale and pure, trails narrow, plummet, climb, and jackknife over the granite jumble of broken planetary bones. We glimpse a momentary thaw in a world frozen in icy fingers. But we don’t whisper this to the lush grass springing from damp soil, pooled in the cool seeps, between the shades of fir and spruce. Who trembles on the lonesome peaks and ridges? Disoriented, by sparse air and stark beauty. I long to view the hidden valleys of alpine grace, and remote peaks of unreachable distance, and ponder a holy, violent birth. I bow to this risen paradise.