"Visiting Mountains" by Ted Kooser

The Tetons and the Snake River, Ansel Adams, 1942

The plains ignore us,

but these mountains listen,

an audience of thousands

holding its breath

in each rock. Climbing,

we pick our way

over the skulls of small talk.

On the prairies below us,

the grass leans this way and that

in discussion;

words fly away like corn shucks

over the fields.

Here, lost in a mountain’s

attention, there’s nothing to say.

"Visiting Mountains" by Ted Kooser from Flying at Night. © University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985.