Long's Peak Poem by Nancy Vorkink

A year-end retreat
Into clear high country air
Touches a need for nature’s power.
Standing tall against whirling snow
Magical snow-capped mountains, all fourteeners,
Create mystical white-outs.
The treeless awe of the tundra thunders
-Empty, lonely, frozen—
With godly force and mighty howling winds.
Furry marmots dig deeper into protective caverns.
Long-bearded mountain men search for the lost king elk.
Tourists gone for the winter.
On grasslands below a herd of lady elk
Sixteen in all graze on flat brown nourishment
To the delight of humankind’s digital cameras.
Today snowshoers traipse in the back country at Bear Lake.
Crystal snowflakes in water begin the healing.
Images of world peace play in the forest.
Long-needle pine trees, Ponderosa, they say, can
Bring us to a calm and lasting peace.

12.31.05