(untitled)

    Imagine a trail that winds up a steep hill,
    Deep moss beneath dark firs on either side
    Whose knobby roots reach underfoot to spill
    Hikers intent on what the next turn hides:
    A gated fence. Beyond these woods, light glides
    Across an autumn meadow with a golden glow,
    Dropping to glacial valley, above which rides
    The Jungfrau: craggy granite cliff and snow --
Imagine that, you might grasp how it hit just so.

    We step into the alpine field and stare.
    Here autumn glorifies with browns, instead of scours,
    And dots the scrub with rose-hip red -- no, there,
    Beside the outcrop where a lone fir towers.
    The path continues on, perhaps for hours,
    Drawing us past what details catch our eyes:
    Next to the path, a few late purple flowers --
    Yonder, glaciers capped by cloudy skies.
What could we do but find out what's beyond the rise?

—2 November 2008

The three-part dispatch was my "official" report of the trip, but not the only verse written from it. This was a finger-exercise with Spencerian stanzas, attempted because I was finding rhyme royal a little cramped for expansive descriptions. That I used the not-quite-right word a bit too often shows that I don't really have control of the form yet.

---L.