The Size of Mountains

Alone, ambling
the newborn
slant-light morning

Footfalls crunch frozen ground
The ringing silence, between
Eyes float above the land,
Raven whoosh
Eight thousand-foot-high desert
vast, Taos llano

Dotted mountains as far as you can see
blue junipers
sage sea
January

Black Gorge,
Rock wall tumbles
down to deeper darkness
Rio below
winter whispering

Fingers tickle icy air
breathing, nostrils crackle
face glad in thin sun,
arms reach

toes, pull
tendons taught,
Muscles like junipers,
creaking
when wind comes

Then:
my body feels,
something more than self–
           feels place
Up legs, through cold skin
Penetrates flesh
Finds bone

Inside,
old discontent
vanished
in cold sage scent

Here, nose down
notice between shoes
dry grass, little clumps, plain as dust
nothing special until

Pupils, pierced
by some tiny arrow
a glancing shard of sunlight
Startled, search, looking smaller
to see, amazed
the brilliant filigree,
thousands of tiny ice diamonds, sharp, clear
spangling the length
of each whispy stalk
Mountain ranges!

I could fall tiny into that enormous world right now!
Yes, fall
Ascend each separate ice spire
like peaks of the Sangre de Cristo
to bathe in sun and blue white light
atop each summit

One crystal enough, an ascent to light
Each stalk a cordillera!
This one hundred-stalked grass clump
far-flung chains!
Himalayas!

The llano stretches about me
countless grass strands
and their mountain peaks
all the way to Taos Mountain,
all the way to
mountains
all the way

 – Garth Gilchrist

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