David Rothman

“Always Somewhere"

Somewhere in the dark is always mountains,
Years in mountains, mountains silent, standing
Inscrutable, big, rocky, piercing, sheer,
And hills, wrinkled and rippling, calling clear
Across their time, symbolic, real, and branding
Reality as cities boast a downtown.

Always somewhere in the air is snow
Of every kind, light, drifted, melting, deep
Especially, its liquid energy
Released come spring stored temporarily
Upon the mountains as through time they keep
Faith with cold nights where the foxes bark and roam.

Somewhere always is an everywhere
Where the mountains and the snow grow down
In time, until, in winter's deep sleep, time
Grows balanced, and in quiet you can climb
A mountain and the snow no one can own
Because in afternoon sunshine, time's there.

Always in this somewhere life was skiing,
Riding on and through each, every storm
As if forever in a glorious seeming
Of time down mountains where the quick snow streaming
Invited the world's body to perform.

Could anything have ever been more freeing?
So when it's taken, with our words and seeing,
Let these words stand: now that was time and being.”
― David Rothman