Chiaroscuro

The mountain range has
trapped on its summits clouds
lazy with moisture, too inert
with their weight to break free
and drift on, but pierced by
the shafts of those ambitious
heights, arrogant with the
hubris of their command of
the landscape bathed in a fury
of pounding rainfall. From the
valleys rise plumes of mist,
opaque and ephemeral. Shifting
grey haze of mist reaches
from the lowering ceiling
of cloudburst volumes
clouding the atmosphere,
shielding the verdance of
the forested slopes; every vista
a landscape transformed to
bleak monotones of grey.