After a visit with dear friends in the Blue Ridge of Virginia . . .

Blue Ridge

Miles distant and years also
The blue mist sweeps away
Skyward the mountains’ edge.

They reach valley to cloud
Like tense muscle and tendon
Climbing to the west
And calling.

The green trees root in the rock
Grow together
Transfigure into gray and blue walls
That speak of ages long ago
When hot green rock reached to the heavens
Pushed up from below
With an earthly yearning to grow.

These ridges are older than dirt.
For the dirt that now gathers in their ragged valleys
Comes from the rising rock
Conversing with the sky
Loving and loved by ice and rain, root and sun --
This aged stone gives its wisdom
To the farms below.

At the foot of their rise
I stand changed
A fleck in the eye of God.
Rooted and
Crumbling
And growing
With a tense muscle
Ready to pounce
At the earthly moment
That lies before.