Mad Rush

The mountain stream
thunders and pounds
its surplus down
and over the
granite slopes
around erratics that have
calved off the sides
of the ancient rock cone
needling clouds halted
in their coursing flight
across the dark sky.
The watercourse swirls
and scatters leafy
detritus and aged patches
of curling grey lichen
scrubbed by the
wind and rain from
venerable tree trunks
as the forest below
saturated, humidity
suffocating the atmosphere
is sprayed again by the
stream's mad dash to the 
treed valley and the
river, bounder-strewn
and aptly named 
Mad River swells and
gathers its engorged 
watery volume in
rapids and cascades
boiling and roiling
frothing and thrumming.