Calgary to Canmore, Alberta, Canada

to imagine one's self as mountains

so far, Alberta, Canada, is flat,

and the mountains we seek

do not rise before us,

only the skyscrapers of Calgary rise up,

as do the airplanes coming in and leaving,

there are some rolling hills amidst the plains,

and, once we drive past them,

we scan the horizon, 

where banks of clouds 

do a great imitation of mountains

and can fool my gullible eyes,

our car races up a smooth straight road 

at about 100 km per hour,

and slowly, like a thought just forming,

shapes appear, huddled at the base of the clouds,

and the great stone giants called the Canadian Rockies

rise up into the clouds as we seem to sink below them,

both the mountains and we aim ourselves toward a common goal

till the road turns into the range,

the Bow River shows us the way,

as it drains a great long U-shaped valley

with mountains bulwarked on either side,

rocky mountains rise above coniferous forests, 

great bulks of sedimentary stone:

pewter bright in sun and shadowed gray without the beams,

spruce-fir forests fill the valleys 

and reach as high as they can toward the summits,

deep green mats whose moods 

vary with sun and shade like the rocks,

each tree a sharp point ready to pierce the snow

and shake it off to the ground,

a triumph of life here where stone has reached to the sky, 

and ice has sculpted over eons,

I feel so ephemeral within my own skin,

but I feel so much larger, grander,

when I imagine myself as these timeless mountains.

by Henry H. Walker

July 10, ‘19