Rocky Mountain High

Hiking in Estes Park
September 2012

You who never arrived

Fern Lake Trail
Rocky Mountain National Park
September 2012

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you.
I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave
of the next moment.
All the immense
images in me--the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,

cities, towers, and bridges,
and unsuspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once pulsing
with the life of the gods--
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

Rainer Maria Rilke