The Adirondacks
My heart is in the Adirondacks
And day by day i drink the courage
captured in these mountain heights.
The trail winds across the slope where bramble
lies like Tangled Truth--Blending Berries and Briars
--Bold challenges for hungry wanderers.
The great white pine leans low in mountain wind--
but lifts its top again--the living hiding place
of antelope and bear--and little things
the birds and scurriers finding safety
in the needled limbs.
The contradictions here abound,
The breathless height amid hollow crevices,
The stillness--absence of humanity--amid
a cacophony of Nature's jumbled cries;
the barren rock 'tween rooted evergreens;
the toxic elder hiding almond scented mushrooms;
the dying elm that shades the sprouting oak;
The tumultuous roar of naked storms
Belied in the quiet tumble of mountain streams.
All these things--these contradictions
do but mirror the tortured passion
in my breast. Nor in the madding cities
or steepled churches hiding frightened people--
nor yet, in tenuous arms of would be lovers--
do i find peace. But only here--
where trembling deer dip cautiously
into the water's edge; squirrels scold
in unquiet trees, and wild turkeys
strut unfrightened across the wind-bare
rocks. Here--on a mossy bank--
where the current curves in gurgling smiles
around the jutting stones; here
in the flickering welcome of mountain shadows
the human spirit finds release.
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