Age strewn boulders rest
on steep terrain, lime green,
sky blue with lichens grown,
carpet of fern, white-haired
golden rod, rhododendron,
mountain laurel understory,
canopy of hemlock, cucumber
magnolia, hickory.  A shelter
deep, secluded in a U-shaped
bend in the canyon. Iron ore
deposits sinew, weathered proud
of gnarled walls, stacked
in foregone faulted layers,
gurgle of a faint cascade
could lull a cool adult to sleep
as fast as an infant;
stretched above, across
rock house expanse, an arm
of sandstone thin and elegant,
a great grandmother, sage
and steady, reaching
down into the crib of her
granddaughter’s new born.
Arch of stone, fragile and resilient
as the ferns which grow beneath,
dainty, yet defiant over epochs,
of earth’s incessant tug.