Moving Mountains

by Elizabeth Done

Seeley-Swan High School, Grade 12

They are the valley's eastern sentinels

granting passage to the sun.

They are rigidly cut shadows under

violet chalk skies.

They're a skiff of oil upon water,

shifting in light, unfurling with each step,

until the puzzle pieces have rearranged themselves.

Their distant counterparts are hazy scenes on

Grandma's rabbit-ear television.

Their steel hue is the Falls dampening their feet.

They are the slope of a Grizzly's face

with the colors of a black bear and his brothers.

They are thin-air, heat induced daydreams

rushing up to meet me as a curious fox.

Their voices, the thrush, the creek,

the bull, the trill of insects.

They tell all guests their secrets,

few wander that far.

They are pieces of shale upon which

all my weight rests...

I would rather chance a tumble

than never reach a summit.

Perhaps this part of me refuses to be still,

as pika scamper across these shale slides.