When granite and sandstone begin to blur
and flow, the eye rests on cool white aspen.
Strange, their seeming transparency.
How as in a sudden flash one remembers
a forgotten name, so the recollection.
Aspen.
With a breeze in them, their quiet rhythms,
shimmering, quaking. Powder on the palm.
Cool on the cheek. Such delicacy
the brittle wood, limbs snapping
at a grasp, whole trees tumbling in the winds.
Sweet scent on a swollen afternoon.
Autumn, leaves falling one upon another, gold
rains upon a golden earth. How at evening
when the forest darkens, aspen do not.
And a white moon rises and silver stars
point toward the mountain, darkness
holds them so pale.
They stand still, very still.
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David Lee was Utah's first poet laureate, and is the author of fifteen volumes of poetry, including So Quietly the Earth, Driving & Drinking, and News from Down to the Cafe. A former seminary candidate, semi-pro baseball player, and hog farmer, he has a Ph.D. concentration in John Milton and taught at Southern Utah University for three decades.
< Thanks to Mark Hufstetler for recommending this poem. >