Black Ridge, White Rocks

For a few minutes’ pause in the parade,

Mountain winds are all the psalms of the pines.

Let’s not begrudge, too much, the pick-up trucks

And motorbikes the hunger of their roars.

The pines are also always hankering,

And every noise but the wind itself wants more.

West of Mount Yen, the roads have no waysides,

The rumbles don’t reach, the sun never comes.

West of Mount Yen, on Black Ridge, in White Rocks

Nothing at last embraces nothing much.

But we are all creatures of nothing much,

And I love the wayside, despite the trucks.

If we would like to rest somewhere, it must

Be here, among the basalt, in the dust.