Cloud and snow spume
drift about your summit
veiling your face
Ma Nanda Devi
fixing my gaze to eternity

Rising like a giant shard of
rock carved over a million years,
snowfields scoured by avalanches, your steepled
peak a vast cathedral

Impossibly tall and steep
you rise abruptly over a
guardian ring of summits
witness to your inner realms of being,
the outer gorge of Rishi Ganga's roar

Climbers say in higher climes
light contrasts with darkness, flower leas with worn ridges, fear with elation
O paradox of the sublime
your name means Joy, enduring Joy

The veil lifts, was it the smoke of fires lit
by sages on your summit?
Your natural symmetry of two identical peaks suddenly at ease
is visible from my cottage window.