snow falls on the mountainside among stones
ancient as the earth, patient as stars, cold
as the ice eating their skin inexorably
away year after year into millennia.
just as these mountains creep along their slow
path to oblivion by way of wind,
water, and time. water falling from the sky,
melting from sunlight on peaks high above.

snow falls on the mountainside among trees
young in the earth, their brief spans lived quickly
relative to mountains. firs, pines, cedars,
and aspens tiered down the heights ridge to ridge.
upon the homes of cougar and bear, elk,
moose and hare — on the mountainside, snow falls.

dmpitchford