NOT JUST MOUNTAINS

The stony silence of the scree
not broken by reinforced
by the dropping and rolling
of a single stone.
The marmot out of a hole
like a root’s soul,
a whistle piercing
the seconds’ heart,
the resin smell filling
a beehive of pine needles
with its cleansed sunlit heat,
the sign at last: red and white
on the grey rock,
two fat stripes
that are the steps’ reassurance,
in the wood now, soft turf underfoot
a fulfilment after the rasping
hardness of the scree.
And later the wood smell welcoming
your sweater in the drawer.
Not just mountains.

This poem was published in Summer 2011 in the on-line magazine ken*again. It came to my mind because I have just had the news -actually I should have already known that but I had forgotten- that a poem I wrote in the same period of time ( The Paths) is going to appear in Upstairs At Duroc, a print magazine.
I wrote several poems about "being" in the mountains in the summer 2010, I consider it as "another life", it was a marvellous month, July, in which we hiked, me, my wife and a childhood friend -who kindly drove us with his car to the various strategic places- in the high mountains around Cortina.