Thursday, July 14, 2011

Mountain Stream (Ansel Adams)





















#21

The stream ran through high mountain pasture
From failing glacier to pool to pond to lake,
Between banks limned with moss and aster
Rooted in cascades of shattered igneous flake.
I straddled the water running slow over stones,
My boots precariously gripping boulders
The water’s rilling shaped into hipbones.
Further up hunched matching shoulders.
I found a head and rolled it in, midstream.
The shallow, muttering water, unperturbed,
Flowed around and on like a vanished dream.
Provoked, I left not a rock undisturbed
And rolled them in -- the addled stream burst
Banks and drowned the mountain pasture’s thirst.

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