Best Yosemite Poems
gentle flakes drift down
to soften the valley floors
while lacing the trees
with the silent retelling
of ancient native legends
winding brooks of glass
shimmer as they meander
through meadows of gleaming frost
A crystalline bridal veil
adorns the cathedral cliffs
granite monoliths,
crafted by glacier giants,
surround this valley...
hovering, as if to guard
the peace in God's gift to earth
..............................................................................................................
For Brian Strand's Contest: #223
Yosemite’s Ephemeral Autumn Falls
Bald giants of swift water smoothed pale granite
Mark deep clefts for tumbling summer snowmelt
Rush released from frozen streams once frostbit
Silver swells - Ribbon Falls in pure ice melt -
Ephemeral streams slowed beneath Orion’s belt.
Thin tulle mist from autumn’s gossamer Bridal Veil
Flutters, bathing stony arms embrace of Royal Arch,
Quaking Aspen in Alder Creek covers Misty Trails
Witness near the Staircase wildflowers parched -
Golden leaves on steep slopes from the western larch.
Sheer barren faces only seep crystalline tears
As rivers flow to shallow autumnal rivulets
And Fire Falls wait for wintery floods to reappear
When somber quartz welcomes new Cascades reset
Catching torrent tides, flashing in a fiery sunset.
Wild Cat eyes the Sentinel in thirsting, dried up rills
That thinly coat plutonic rock in a glacial train
Only a trickle floats lazy scarlet sent over these hills
No tumbling drops tickle Waterwheel to turn with rain
While Snow Creek laments in narrow runnels refrain.
No gushing rivers plunge in roaring thunder veils
Nor scramble down Yosemite’s plainly marbled face
Scant silvered dews spill over on Nevada’s trails
For soon the breathing winter storms many falls erase
Till joyful spring redeems autumn in this magic place.
A tribute to the magnificence of Yosemite during autumn.
IN THE VALLEY OF YOSEMITE
Today, as I took a walk through,
The valley of Yosemite, such
A beauty that lies within
The rocks, trails, and the falls
There is a place where
Clear blue sky's embrace
Where the trees are tall
And are rooted within rocks
As I lift my head up to
The sun that dries my tears,
That falls from my eyes, there
Is a breeze among the pines.
In the early morning as I
Follow the longest trails,
Keeping my steps steady and strong
Mountains, blue skies, animals, white snow.
Yosemite with many trails and sceneries
Of beauty, hikes, through John Muir and
Glacier Mountains, peaceful feelings
Here In the valley of Yosemite.
copywrited @ 2008
Carved by the hand of God you are
awesome, heavenly, take my breath
away, Yosemite.
I worked and lived in Yosemite when
I was 18 1/2 till I was 23.
How was I to be so blessed? some
would say I'm lucky I guess.
What an impact you had on me,
for I was young broken and, lost
till you opened my eyes, you filled
my heart.
You healed my heart, you healed
my soul with all the beauty, the magic,
that you behold.
Your sunrises, sunsets, waterfalls,
your meadows, wildlife, granite
walls of Half Dome, El Capitan, Clouds
Rest, and the Camp 4 climbers they were
the best.
The people, the memories, that I had made
will last me my lifetime I will take them to
my grave.
Now when I die I have just one request,
please spread my ashes and, lay me to
rest, in the place I love the best, my heaven
on earth Yosemite.
So I thank you Yosemite, for the Kodak
moments, and memories, that you truly
gave to me.
You healed my heart, you healed my soul,
with all the beauty, and magic, that you behold.
One of the best things about living in Yosemite, is the miles and miles of trails. I love to hike. Since I've been in Yosemite I have always hiked by myself. It clears my mind and helps me understand and get in touch with my thoughts, goals, and dreams.
On a hike back in Sept 2010, I took The Loop Trail its about 13.5 miles around the valley floor. It was during this hike, I found myself literally in the middle of 9 Mule Deer grazing along the side of the trail. As I looked around, I found I was the only one on the trail. No one else to share this experience with. As I walked with caution not to disturb there breakfast, I looked back at them, they continued to go about there meal. like I wasn't even there.
As I contnued on my walk, the beauty of Yosemite was all around me. I was inspired. At this moment I felt the Spirit of Yosemite all around me. Then saddness enter my soul, I wish I had that someone special to share it with.
I took a walk today
I felt something within me
it was on this old trail
I found the spirit of yosemite
The falls were fallen
the rivers flowing
trapped in a dream of beauty
I closed my eyes, it was you I was holding
We walked along a vast meadows
as our inner desires began to roam
then kissing your soft lips
at the base of half dome
Sharing a blanket under a tree
then long walks hand and hand
I know the heart was meant for us
the heart of El Capitain
I took a walk today
i felt something strong with in me
It was my love for you
I found in the Spirit of Yosemite.
CAMP 4
‘If I die, I die.’
The realness of those words
sent a shiver down my spine
as I listened to the climbers.
It was late autumn, 1969.
There was a pause after his words
and each face made the slightest nod
peering deeply into the flames;
Tom Bauman had just soloed the Nose.
Slowly, I began to put pitons into
the face of life, jammed my fist
into fissures, and ascended slowly.
I delighted when my blood dripped
onto the dark diorite veins in the granite.
For this is life and I believe
in the challenge of the ascent and
the use of a life to outlive it.
It is now the winter of 2014, and
I wander through Camp 4.
I look at the young, intense faces
as they to peer into the flames.
I would share with them what
has been my own first ascent,
but Tom lives on, so I scream
to a startled camp my tribute to life:
‘If I die, I die.’
A glazed view, as through a glass that magnifies
Between the granite banded with blue and umber
Cruel paths of glacier, ancient swords of hunger
Deeply carved a threshold one can hardly grasp
Each turn of compass, leaves a gasp
Forever brings our talking to a halt
Green rivers whipped to white by waterfalls
How gaunt the pines climb high upon the ridge
Itself, a place exempt from time
Justifies belief of Godly kind
Keeping watch above a valley floor
Looming monoliths of ancient lore
Morning bright of shimmering brooks that flow
Next brings winter breezing through the mind
Ours the privilege of beholding
Past and futures coming here together
Question not the overwhelming wonder
Relished eyes behold the truthful splendor
Saturates the heart and soul forever
That if one stands too long within such glory
Under white peaks and folklore stories
Varying degrees of speechlessness and thrill
With sun above, and human form so small
Xanadu is not of fiction, it is real
Yosemite, this place, this land of royal grace
Zenith, this land of majesty, my eyes and heart embrace
________________________________________________________________________
Inspired by Deborah Guzzi's contest: "Do You Know Your A B C s?"
Dedicated to My Dad....Where he spend his childhood
Tissiack’s Tears
“[F]or I was absorbed in the great Tissiack [Half Dome]-- I have gazed on Tissiack a thousand times -- in days of solemn storms, and when her form shone divine with the jewelry of winter, or was veiled in living clouds; and I have heard her voice of winds, and snowy, tuneful waters when floods were falling; yet never did her soul reveal itself more impressively than now. John Muir
Tissiack’s tears fall from her rain-stained face,
her profile one with the lichened rock.
She, the spirit of the Ahwahneechees,
speaks silently, with the voice of winds,
and presence of time past and present.
For a summer, my tent opened to her
With flaps opened, I peered upon her,
Confident that I understood her words;
But I was just imperiousness youth,
And youth distracts from truth.
Years later, I return to her and sit
in the moonlight at Mirror Lake.
As my eyes tire and grow unfocused,
I see her missing half in the water –
her half that’s not, her mystic moiety.
She whispers of life’s unhalves, and in the
rippled, reflective waters appears,
my unhalf – those thoughts, unthought and
that life, unlived; whereupon, I too shed tears.
Yosemite’s huge boulders
Sliced in two in the Ice Age
Half Dome and El Capitan
Both carved by a sheet of ice, a glacier
Peering down from the mountains
Buttercups grace the valley
Where deer come to graze at dusk
Worlds of wonder wait at national parks
*A Parise Pariku for Rick’s contest.
Written June 21, 2012
In summer she thunders majestically
her splendor spewing power soaked
sound waves of security cross the valley
and trails where tourists are cloaked
in her confident comforting mist.
In winter she quick silently retreats
to the mountaintop peaks of surrealist
chill hibernation eerily replete
with mankindness's self-interested
profit motive doused in froze song.
In spring dogwood bloom crested
redwoods and Rockies coax along
her re-emergence. She windchimes
her essence, then winds up her chords
karaoked according to times.
There was one spring when the lords
or ladies or deities or whatever
hushed her for a moment
in favor of the wailing fresh quiver
of sprite breath born to foment.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nancy Jones
9/26/11 (which happens to be my father's 80th birthday)
Flowing water
*I was born in the spring a few hundred yards (meters) from Yosemite Falls many moons ago
*Rhyme scheme is ababc dcdef efghg hijij
(Poem included in the Poems of Yosemite chapbook.)
Ineffable –
Still, I write these lines
trite.
A scaffold of words
which whence removed
casts only a silence
of long shadows.
To you, the paradigm
of living time,
I write ephemeral
wordless words.
You say nothing
though the wind wafts
words which speak
beyond words to each.
The sound of wind
continues in the stillness
and reaches into
the logos which
spells the visitors
deeper than these.
You speak centuries –
the entire time
of our adolescence –
when you’ve watched
as we wrestle with
the worst of nature.
You were made for fire
and your cambium grows
thick bark and fibers
over the scars.
Does too our tissue
grow over scars?
Wars, devastations?
Will these as well clear
the understory?
But you don’t create fire
you endure it.
Is that the difference?
This is your nature,
share and compare us ours.
We see your exposed rings
and the markers
telling us which ring
belongs to Christ
and the Inquisition.
I see my ring
but not the current
as only the living
scribe those rings
and they are being written.
Poetry overcomes time
and endows the ephemeral
with permanence.
Your permanence
is presence and in
this silence of time
the visitors sense
then understand –
they’ve come not to see you
but themselves.
no litter in tents
scuffle --- frost night long --- rustle
mouse feasts we listen
Yosemite
Frozen precipice.
Just around the bend…watching.
The white valley rests.
Glistened by the noonday sun.
Famous mountain waters fall.
© August 5, 2010
Dane Smith-Johnsen
Right foot into this little dimple that you can toe in on aggressively so it’s opposing the left hand, then you can, like, zag over across to this flat, down-pulling crimp that’s small but you can bite it.
[From Honnold’s climbing notebook.]
For me, the most transcendental feat –
your smeared soles at Freeblast Slabs,
your shoulder jammed into Offwidth
and cardiac-kick at the Boulder
were: Inspirational; unimaginable.
We sit in theatre chairs white-gripping
our armrests and, too often, eyes closed.
Up on El Cap as much as we’ll e’er be,
We twist our bodies in synchrony.
We’ve seen how immeasurable
the possible; the achievable
of the inconceivable. At last,
an image beyond the past; a hero
of no vanquished enemy,
brawling limitless potentiality.
Following your lead, we reimagine
how we might ascend our vallied lives.
Alone, I camp below Cathedral Peak –
God, I know you’re not who we say you are
and you certainly have a case for slander.
What fantastical tales we tell of you,
and the more nonsensical, I wonder,
absurdly, makes you more believable.
The cold, night sky ascends from below
until only the mountain’s white peak glows,
I perpend how you are our double-bind –
Antithetical, yet inevitable,
omnipotent, yet shirking the onus
of sin, disease, and immorality.
I have backtracked my last fifty years
from the convenience of nihilism
and of nullity, which once embraced me.
I loved that luxury of arrogance
and conceit to everywhere forswear faith.
Over years, I’ve shed those simple vestments
to now plead the argument’s opposite –
But not Faith. What emerged is a mountain
from igneous intrusion and ascending
within until it now glows as beacon.
I, a conjoined blind man with elephant,
unable to wrest your entirety,
but know these three aspects of your being:
I know of your love, your love of beauty
and your love of life. These would and could not
otherwise emerge from the darkness and
the absolute void of time and space.
Nullity is too facile and stays so
unless there’s more – More, for black begets black
and cannot create something from nothing.
And one should not grow old without seeing
that there is something; that an Is, is;
a wisdom and grace that originates.
It is hard to deny both denial
and a god who insists on penitence
and sacrifice. Here, below Cathedral Peak,
an epiphanic edifice, I see
a parent god who prods and acclaims her
progeny’s progress and accomplishments.
For it is enough to inhale the air
of her love written into scripture for
humanity to now warmly embrace.