The Sand Hill Review http://www.stanford.edu/~sandhill 2005
Jade
Lying in clouds
storms still frequently rage
around his thirteen peaks
spindly fir, dragon spruce,
Chinese
hemlock, larch, and fragrant
camphor;
rips of blue sky appear,
disappear.
Something white beyond white,
sunlit
and unfocused.
Swirls of dense fog erase
the empty grade, all from sight.
Our lift
sways upon cable hook,
halts not at the highest peak
but at a frozen icy walkway, below
majesty.
I did not come to conquer.
Knees tremble, thin air.
Inside the teahouse we gaze,
sip dragon’s breath
then
alpine accentor:
his brazen auburn breast.
black streak pepper down,
white paint-daubs bar his wings;
a tiny motion of residency.
The small eye gleams aslant.
A bit of yellow beak strikes
insect—gone!
Bank of pure snow breaks—
Survival.
Mary-Marcia Casoly