Like flowers on a hillside, mountains turn their faces each day
to follow the sun. The radiance from their foreheads proves
irresistible. It is Agamemnon’s golden death mask. By afternoon,
the gray countenance beneath the finely hammered gold
turns green. The peaks are envious of the blumen that beam
the same brilliance throughout the day

Mountains vainly yearn to reproduce themselves.
Avalanches create one pseudo-answer. But they
are messy, ugly, out of control, leaving body after
body in their wake. They destroy life, not create it.
Some mountains have had their DNA tested --
double helix of stone incapable of even rudimentary
cell division. Solitude, loneliness attack
their dreams. They sternly stand guard over the very
flowers they envy. They are virtually immovable, all-powerful.

Weather wraps itself around their mute witness, stirring
up storms. Titanic overseers, they claim a streak of divinity in their
gray strata. No one dares question their beliefs. But I do,
whenever Gatsby’s green light turns pink. The shame they show
reflects hubris, overreaching their place in creation. What
they envy is not color, motion or beauty. They lust for life.

Pink turns to fiery orange. Not only is their DNA lacking,
but so is the color of sustenance: blue. By nightfall, blue turns to
black indigo. Mountains crane their heads together, bow to
the missing sun and dream about biology. But they know from
whispers of those who have climbed them that they are out
of their element. The wind gusts; they sigh. Below, deer graze
in quiet, green pastures. It restoreth their souls.