Jim Barron

Snow

Say nothing of the mountain, calling
in the night, growing, looming in sleep.
You can see it behind his eyes,
his weathered face never left the mountain.
He sees the snow on the summit as you shake his hand
and each night he is called back.
Soon the mountain will claim him, the cold stream,
the single diamond glint of a snowflake
in the high moonlight. The mountain does not know him.
Any more than he knows each rock
or the cloud that keeps him from the peaks.
He waits at the top of the world, breathing time slowly.
Watching the arching blue turning around him,
feeling the rocks alive to his touch.