The soft sound of dry snow
on the long incline to Devil’s Peak,
white curves and outcrops
above the tree line,
unforgiving, solemn,
windswept to the far distance.
Solitary prayers like
mist blown snow,
lifted in arcing curls
into the cold air,
crystalline blue
above the tall mountain.
Ah, the beautiful ascetic in you, Don — purification by cold wind? Yikes. Solitary AND cold is a combination I’d rather avoid… still, a beautiful, fierce image.
Those who’ve not climbed toward a peak in the snow have yet to be Blessed by the curls of powdery prayer blowing through the air of this day.
I left a seeming paradisaical setting out of hunger for the peaks of my homeland–its purity of cold wind and virgin snowscape–where silence is music. My eyes and ears join a comradarie of agreement with heart and mind to be in concert with Earth Mother and Father Sky.
This one brings memories of my childhood, as we approach Autumn in Australia, Thanks for your photographic words.
Prayers that signal the irrepressible human spirit in a darkened world…..
Whenever I see snow on the mountains and across the fields, I think of Bill Bahan’s comments about snow being “poor man’s fertilizer”. A rather basic perspective on what really happens within the depths of snowy winter. Trusting, waiting, resting meditation. Life at it’s most still.
“windswept to the far distance” encapsulates it all. Beautiful, brother.