Fall 1957
She Wed a Mountain Man
She wed a mountain man and tried to love
The hard defiant thrust of angry stone
Whose jealous crevices reject the chastening sun
And let no sentimental seed be sown.
For once, before men, the liquid rock rebelled
And split the earth's cloud crust exultingly.
Assaulted by the thin and hostile air
It hardened into immortality.
In frozen passion now the bare-boned peaks
Refuse the compromise of lesser lands
And fling a splendid challenge to the winds,
The blunting snow and the abusive sands.
She loved a mountain man, but dying wept
To leave the mountain's cataclysmic truth
Her ebbing heart sought permanence and and peace
Within the gentle forests of her youth.