Mountainside

Across the wooded hinterlands,

Young men are dreaming living dreams

Of a new age yawning,

Of a new spring dawning,

Of a personal thawing.

 

When the comings and goings are

Rivers flowing,

Fools knowing,

Grapevine growing.

When the wind’s blowing

Is some spirit’s exhalation

In blindly beautiful exhilaration,

In blindly blissful excitation.

 

The fears are years,

And both will pass

In pointless tasks,

In tasseled masks,

In emptied flasks,

In firsts and lasts,

In a torrid flood of untamed laughs.

 

Each breathless kiss with parted lips

Will never cease to exist,

Each glassy eye that breaks and cries

Will finally know a bit of peace,

Will finally learn how to release.

To accept it, to embrace with grace.

 

Every firefly will surely die,

Every cicada lives to cry,

And upon every mountainside

There’s rockslides looming,

Thunder booming,

Columbine blooming.

 

Someday, maybe soon,

This wild son of the foggy night

Lightning bolt bright will bolt upright.

 

Until that day, then.