VOICES OF ASPENS

(For my nephew, David in Montana, who has the ears to hear)

The mountainside was robed with them,

       in glorious cloth of gold,

             all moving in the passing autumn air.

And having hiked for hours today,

       he planted booted foot

              on silent, solid granite, resting there.

Cocking ear, he listened close

      that he might hear the aspens speak,

              their voice a fluttering fall of golden leaf...

The sound that yellow makes

      when it laughs upon the slopes,

               completely unacquainted with all grief.

He was silent, listening,

      as they whispered and they sang,

               understanding well their golden tongue,

For he'd walked upon the mountaintops

      and in valleys where they grew,

           learning well the way of it when he was very young.

Camping by the rivers of his ready heart

       he'd grown a sunlit, seeing eye,

            and ears that knew to open full to hear...     

So the aspens shared their secret song with him,

      mysteries of the soaring mounts,

           the yellowed voices speaking free and clear.

Jo Anzalone  Nov. 1, 2006

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