you know the mountains
I don’t have to tell you

no cell phone reception,
even from the highest overlook
parades of granite crowns

stacks of weathered granite, pitted, cracked
inclines of scuffed white granite
lichen blackened granite
sparkle of broken granite

pine needles crunchy underfoot
and now the wind, like a waterfall
in the ponderosa pine with the plated orange trunk
then, all the ponderosa pines

along the asphalt trail,
memorial plaques mounted on a rusting pipe
here the emigrants passed by
here the Indians had to be destroyed
silence of the white dam holding back the sky