"Errant"

High, the painful mountains,
Covered with thorny blue pine.
Mists rise from falls like fountains;
Under trees, with outstretched spine,
The sharp spires of fallen cones
Lie atop grey and aged stones.

In the smoke there shapes a girl
Or else in dreams I have with me;
In the darkening I watch her curl,
The helmet propping up my knee.
Too dark to read, with whitened blade,
I carve a staff in living glade.

Come morning I shall go, and ride
The wildr'ness ridge for distant miles;
Below, the wood is green and wide,
Above, geese sway in arching files;
I ride till trees prick sun with lance:
There in smoke my dream will dance.

Sometimes I dream she calls to me,
And reaches out to stroke my face
In that hot white city beside the sea;
But morning wakes upon the waste.
I rise up from my bed of stone,
Take up my boots, and ride alone.

4 comments:

Cass said...

You are a talented poet, my friend.

Thank you for sharing this.

Joel Leggett said...

I am impressed. Very nice.

On a completely different note, have you seen the new John Carter movie? If not, I highly recommend it. I think you would particularly like it

Grim said...

Thank you both.

Joel, I haven't seen it! I haven't seen Act of Valor either, although I tried to go: the wife and I took the rather difficult step of arranging our schedules for a matinee, only to find out when we got there that the theater only does matinees on the weekends now.

I do want to see both films.

Anonymous said...

Ah, to be a woman who is worthy of such devotion is a high calling indeed.

LittleRed1