Nature's Imagination

In all directions radiating
from the mountain pass
the summits fold into one
another, an endless series
of broad-shouldered, tree-strewn
mountains with dense rockslides
stippling their slopes; naked
granite summits capturing
low-slung clouds, wearing
them like wigs on bald pates.
A shimmering of evanescent
light streams down as the sun
releases itself from the screen
of clouds, but soon melts away
when a gathering surge of
milky mist captures the peaks
mantling the slopes and the
summits in mystery, an opaque
shifting cloud of vast,
ephemeral properties and
the trees, the boulders and
the stark summits are suddenly
gone, no longer there, a mere
figment of nature's imagination.