Standing tall,

Like sentinels posted at castle-gates,

Grand peaks pierce the sky like blades;

Eyries, valleys, canyons, crevices, mountains.


The crimson blood of the early sun

Hovers like an early-riser;

Shedding its pinkish-red light on the

Lands about and below,

With groping, pawing tentacles of fire.


Mountains, backed by the early sunrise–

Crimson, blood-red like a warrior’s honorable war-wound–

Silhouetted by the sun’s bright plasma-light,

As if in an artist’s abstract painting.

Cawing of birds–

Eagles, hawks, peregrine falcons–

Echo through the deep, open valleys

Lain below blankets of mist.


The alarm sounds,

Eyelids flutter;

Fingers search desperately for the “SNOOZE” button,

Finding his quarry,

The alarm’s thundering ceases finally.


Quietly, ever so silently,

Man creeps from his bedroom lain in darkness.

Shuffling down the corridor,

Man comes to the kitchen beyond–

Where, through the glass panes of the windows,

The rays of the sun shine like fireballs–

And gazes upon the mountainside far.


Firs, evergreens, even a clump of

Aspens here-or-there,

Dapple the steep, inclined mountainsides.

Sun-rays lick the tips of the firs,

Shining beyond and onto the

Slopes of the roof of the cabin home

Where man resides.


Man finds the coffeepot, and pours

Himself a mug of rich, steaming

Goodness;

Turning to the blinding light of

Early morn,

Lain outside the kitchen doors,

Man gazes upon the prairie-lands beyond–

Where the wall of mountains stand guard.


Man opens the kitchen door,

Stepping into the warm mountain

Breeze that whips about the upraised porch outside.

Steam billowing from the rim of

The coffee-mug,

The sunrise illuminating the

Steep precipices of the Western

Mountains;

Buttes, mesas, near-mountainlike foothills,

A breeze blowing, stirring dust, sand,

Gravel, tumbleweeds,

Whistling through high tree branch eaves.


Man stands amid green Adirondack chairs

Sat upon the porch outside the kitchen,

Sipping his coffee with pleasure.


Looking upon the mist-laden,

Early sunrise-luminated

Mountainlands,

Man, standing upon his porch,

Looks upon the lands of the

West, where foothills and mountains loom;

Gazes far and wide.


And as he does so,

He–

Man–

Forgets his worries and

Sorrows in the view.


As the sun fully-rises,

Now hovering above razor-tipped peaks,

Man returns to the comfort of his home;

And the day draws on past the

Morning mountain mists,

And early dawn’s sunrise….