82
Second Deposition
Sometimes I look inside
and see a mountain slope
in Colorado. There
my grief comes trickling down
from the packed snow of my hate
freshly, spring after spring,
through darkness under fi r trees.
You've seen such places, maybe.
There breed the little wild trout,
the brooky and the cutthroat
in their icy brilliant colors,
there, under branches sagging
or broken from the snows,
the thin song of mosquitoes
criss-crosses the chill air,
there, tiny colored stars
on the dark of the wet moss,
a few mountain fl owers tremble,
fi ne roots washed in snow water,
the colors clear and cold
-- almost too small to notice
should you stray under there,
certainly too small to pick.