One Autumn in Colorado, the leaves <br /> meleed reds and burnt oranges to such extent <br /> that a whimsy struck me about how other states would envy <br /> if they could see these riots; how they'd grieve <br /> over their puny pastels and low, hazy mountains--mediocre <br /> traveling shows, they'd feel themselves--vaudevillian has-beens ... <br /> Our train crawled through Gelnwood, <br /> sunlighted reds sparkling in water splashes <br /> along a stream laughing as if it'd had a happy childhood; <br /> Then as we left Colorado on a gasp of a cliff <br /> and wound down to barren Eastern Utah, <br /> with its rough plains and stark white stone pillars of Zion, <br /> some dark, hedonistic reversal precipitated in me; <br /> Inexplicably I felt the white passion of asceticism <br /> in those starved landscapes and thought, <br /> "No wonder a strange, unique religion fulled-birthed in Utah."<br /><br />Edith Scott Johnson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ascetic-backwash/
