Grandmother Spider Mountain
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Early in the morning we walk upwards
through a slanted forest of aspen and fir
and take delight in seeing a blue bird flutter
in open meadows quite soft underfoot.
We approach grassy hummocks reminding
me of ever-so-green Ireland along the Irish Sea.
Bouncing through the hummocks, I seem to be
traversing within a Paul Cezanne landscape-
painting while chickadees sing from higher
snowfields at the crest, and once on top we
stare at one third of New Mexico spreading
far out into desert with minarets of lava flows
stretching out from Grandmother Spider to
the dark malpais like giant cobwebs helping catch rain clouds for crops of corn, squash and
melons in the fields of the pueblos so far below.
