On a Wet Day in Winter, Look at the Mountains

By Jeff Groat [Lifestyle bureau Chief]

Green goose-bumps
of the sage skinned mountains
prickle with the Haida’s exhalations,
echoing up the silent slopes.

Lachrymal sound of white noise
drip-dripping on the doleful maple,
the lackadaisical lichen frost
shimmers in soaking damp.

Biting air winds its way through flesh and bone,
piercing pith that aches
with every monkish breath,
the wind where no words have walked.

But the charcoal ghost’s clever caw
crashes into the dream-quiet,
carried from heaven between raindrops
like lonely revelations.