from scree to southern moss

quirky platforms from the summit tumble,
arriving at a quiet pool
where granite wedges bubbles.

gyration on the lodgepole pine
mocks cracked rock anomaly,
the hidden mirth of dapple.

in the dancing plot of staring ferns
scoped to light above the giggles,
this tarn a want of dusky spores,
their eyes follow the fevered ball:

we need to lap despite the eyes
where lapping can be fertile.

small grains favor coolness
at the bottom of a fault,
sliding into blindness.

cool knobs of verdant oaths
allow tubers to let us promise
a shadowed rise of evergreen:

we know these streams and cones and moss.

hush, little piskies
twittering in the rush-
it's only humans rooting:

there are spores and needles galore-

carve a forest for gnarled runes
near the promise of a stream.