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THIS MOUNTAIN
By Jeff Fearnside
In the shadowed chill and insect flitting
of this Oregon morning
I am stung
by my inadequacies.
I am not William Stafford.
My pen stutters,
my feet shuffle,
my metaphors turn red
and turn away.
Unconsoled by who I am
I can only reconcile myself
with where I’m at.
It is good to see
green nettles and orange-yellow columbine,
fruiting salmonberry and crimson-seeded maples
with my own eyes,
to breathe and send
oxygen to limbs and organs
with my own blood. The words
to describe these don’t matter.
I sense all this
in my body
and that is enough.
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