mountain comments

(Ecstasy Break)
When you hear
“Mountains are the old crumbling foundations
of a vast edifice, the sky,”
It’s me, mumbling, coming back down
The stair steps behind Castle Lake.
*
Erosion
Rock columns marching slowly
to the edge, falling in
*
mountain—a being, slowly divesting itself (of being a mountain)
*
snow-bright Shasta
jumps off the jewelry into the eastern sky
can it fly
on its white wingspread?
held high above the evening
the mountain is the only thing that is rose
*
Volcanoes begin and hesitate
1000 years later they continue
*
-- it’s a volcano
the river gets hysterical sometimes
rolling its stones, snatching at banks
the mountain, never
smooth forehead, peaceful chin
under storm-hat or gauzy
cloud wiping at her stone nose--
a reference above the city
yet, when I chose
a crayon to draw her likeness
I chose red
*
-- after rain
retouched in white
the mountain lies steaming
white wingspread of her escarpments rise
into the end of every road
*
no more than a crack in the clouds
black tear in canvas
as envisioned by the dishwasher
in the coffee shop
Mt. Shasta bending and flexing
over the city
*
--(clouds heaped upon it)
smoothing out
spire and pinnacle
in the curve of a white dome
look up when you have the time
the eye, created by and for the earthly
finds an almost-compensation
*
-- Bumper sticker in Mt. Shasta City
almost transparent in the white
twin towers, when will they blow?
“Call 911, Make a Fireman Come”
attending the eruption
*
Berge in Steingewaender
*
-- View from Dunsmuir
look up from the city
over incense cedars
the stone woman
floating on her back
in sky-blue water
the clouds withdrawn, her face
is powdered white
innocent of plotting
a teardrop rolled
half-way down
turned to stone
*
-- The Cascades
fire under stone coffins
the shape of enormous snow-capped pyramids
*
Mt. Shasta’s jagged map
Rising from a rumpled bed of layered clouds and fog
pink and lavender in the setting sun
*
-- Hedge Creek
falling, uninterrupted plungingwater strings
across the resonating chamber of the cave
children on mute
swinging nonchalantly over
or reaching carefully with the feet
or hauled up by the arms over
broken columns of basalt
in bright colors dipping, leaping
hauling back to throw
holding up something small to show
between two fingers
lifting an elbow to the face
to fend off the camera’s flashing
*
(da kommt ganz schwarz)
in the umbrella of the sky
(handle in your hand)
tall rain-drapes
snow-events
oh it is a tall white cloud-fall
wild weather over the Siskiyous--
the rain, snow and wind
are practicing upon
a knocked-over staircase
fallen into ruin