"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.

"Report from the West" by Tom Hennen

"Tetons from Signal Mountain" by Ansel Adams, 1930's

Snow is falling west of here. The mountains have more than a

foot of it. I see the early morning sky dark as night. I won't lis-

ten to the weather report. I'll let the question of snow hang.

Answers only dull the senses. Even answers that are right often

make what they explain uninteresting. In nature the answers

are always changing. Rain to snow, for instance. Nature can

let the mysterious things alone—wet leaves plastered to tree

trunks, the intricate design of fish guts. The way we don't fall

off the earth at night when we look up at the North Star. The

way we know this may not always be so. The way our dizziness

makes us grab the long grass, hanging by our fingertips on the

edge of infinity.

"Report from the West" by Tom Hennen, from Darkness Sticks to Everything. © Copper Canyon Press, 2013.

Happy Birthday, Ansel

It's the birthday of photographer Ansel Adams, born 1920, died 1984.

He said, "I hesitate to define just what the qualities of a true wilderness experience are. Like music and art, wilderness can be defined only on its own terms. The less talk, the better."

Yes. Just look. And see.

 The Tetons and the Snake River, 1942

Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park, 1937 

Evening, McDonald Lake, Glacier National Park, 1942

Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, 1963 

Aspens, Dawn, Dolores River Canyon, Colorado, 1937