The frill of trees jig their lady skirts <br />about their knees, buckling <br />under the weight of the wind’s hard approach. <br />When we exhale, our breaths dangle, <br />rearranging syllables and accents <br />the Yanks still claim we carry. <br /> <br />The clouds recoil in pieces of time; <br />inch by inch they scud across the sky, <br />downy spools drawing in their lines. <br />The black hills ball against the blue, <br />splash their painted trees, golden <br />glowing corridors to wander through. <br /> <br />Dropped leaves assemble into cobblestones <br />of amber and scarlet upon the path, <br />carpeting the gnarled and bulging roots <br />like the blue swollen veins in an old man’s hand. <br />The boughs rattle when we near, <br />scramble brittle flakes about <br />like a shaken globe of snow. <br /> <br />Sequestered birds, plump from the summer’s binge, <br />weigh down the perch of each branch and twig. <br />It’s a hard climb up these knuckles of rock; <br />the stone and spine of earth create a natural stair; <br />moss and frosted lichen cushion our path <br />tramped by those who passed through here, <br />leaning on sticks cracked off the edge <br />of fallen logs. Other people scatter like ants <br />at our approach; everyone’s come to find a reflective solitude. <br /> <br />At the summit we finally see <br />the river we couldn’t find at first; <br />having lost our way we decided <br />to climb the escarpment instead. <br /> <br />Laundry laps in the wind, <br />dangling and dancing on its hinge; <br />each farm has a patched quilt plot; <br />the remnants from the last harvest, <br />the beans and pumpkins, <br />have already been left out <br />in the sun to rot. <br />Gaunt and troubled sunflowers <br />flank the gardens; <br />brown heavy heads droop <br />as though in prayer— <br />they already know they are dying.<br /><br />Caroline Misner<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-hard-climb/
