to Pikes Peak, March 2010

You’re there.
You’re always there, different each day
Like the thoughts of a lover.
You’re a cliché
America’s mountain
Heinlein’s rocket pad
The rich men’s fireworks launch
The tourists’ donut shop
The marathoner’s feat.
Once I saw a father
Children running far ahead
“watch out for mountain lions,” I warned
He smiled. He was right,
You’re a city
Above a city
America’s most ordinary adventure.
No purple on you
And no amber below
Except the veined quartz-gold sleeping.
Waiting.
Every day you measure clouds,
Wear snow still and flumed,
The rails, curved, like an off-center necklace
Set ‘round a woman’s hip.
Red plagioclase
Warms you – the Spanish named you
For their generous goddess.
You’re a cliché.
You’re beautiful.