of tenderness,
passionate words of love's beauty,
surreal paintings,
ethereal nature mysteries,
of giftings unselfish,
the hungers, wants, red lust,
it's sorrows, sad desires,
many's the loss.
Yet who speaks of the looming cliff
stacked of shale shards
colored of the rainbow's arches?
The sliding faces
of porous blood sandstone
once yellow at its base.
A gray and gold-veined marble
rings the whole in jagged points
for the fallen to break upon,
and hold for the rains
to wear to dust.
The face is steep with many cracks,
as with the sliding stone
there bears no weight unbalanced.
The hand must claw away
the slats that rubble down the bottom,
for there is crystalline granite
hidden, misshapen
beneath many layers, but it is rock.
One must bring all his skills,
his equipment,
his attention, to the task.
Determination, tenacity are masters here.
The edge cuts must bleed,
the ridge and bulge bruises must blue and black.
Time has honor here, the past, wide path back.
Tomorrow can return in a long slide
to the graveled ground.
The cliff surface is slick with deception,
but gleams with rewards.
The wind sings through fractures
of sunshined meadow play.
Those gain the top, of a mountain,
forested in songbird, forever horizon
turns palette to shaping stars.
The future cliff waits ascents to love.
� 2000 DPMcClellan
