Under the Goddess of the Mountain

 Whistler BC

Under the Goddess of the Mountain
          we, with the marmots, pray:
          may this, our only season
                                under the sun
          ripen a harvest of gentle peace,
                                sung in the evening
                                by the humble feathered ones.

This ice has now melted. It has
          become the foaming rapids, the
          white milk, the
          green flow, wasting not
                                an effort to the sea.

And black crowns, augmented by rust
          gather knittings of the cloud, nurture
          some smallest violets
          subsisting on ice melt
          and sky, here
          where the marmot
          basks on granite, where
          mother bear golden brown
          leads her cub so black
          across lush meadow
          encircled by spruce, where
          the shrinking snow,
          pink upon azure,
          white upon cliffs of black
          leaking tears of sunlight
          they moisten meadows
          anointed by secret,
          secret, so still
          we lost it in the
          rustle
          of our rainbow umbrella.