Speak Mountain

When I praise one petal of a pascal flower, bow to a ball of goat's fur in the lupine,

bid the intercession of a hummingbird, or sip communion from the alpine aster,

I worship the Creator.

Every verse of Holy Scripture sings through a blossom of columbine. The passion of Christ is the ripening of a huckleberry. If I can't grasp the revelation of the bumble bee

on an Indian Paintbrush, my soul will never touch another world.

Speak, mountain, these feet are listening. Your paths are prophet songs. No need

to free-climb sheer cliffs, or find the breathless nothing at the peak. Mid-way is enough.

To saunter all day is my delight, the word from "saunte terre," sacred earth, Old French

of my ancestors: thus the gait of pilgrims, lovers rambling yet intent toward Jerusalem.

Now ease me naked into snow-melt streams that gush through purple penstemon

and monk's hood, where cascade lilies slow-cook in the photons of God's face.

Disguised as lupine, the blue moth folds her pouting wings; we all need places to grieve

this brief gift. And I discover again, as in the beginning, that the high places are here.

Photo: I took this at Mount Rainier, near Indian Henry's Cabin on the Kautz Creek Trail