California Mountain Range Benedict Brooke

California Mountain Range

White edged against the blue encircling sky

Ain’t no river blue enough, nor no mountain high

California mountain range

The shifting sands can’t change

Your place in time

Or halt my endless wanderings

Only touch the clouds one time

And feel the echoes of her mind

The Broken plains, the frozen waste

Alaska or some long lost place

Or the Boot Hills of some Texas of some long lost song

Some such place I stole from time

Now long lost within my mind

Where only memory knows, that someone did somebody wrong

California Mountain range

The seasons pass and never change

The soft calls of your canyons and your ridge back highs

Only touching your stony ground

Your head in clouds wreathed all around

And speaking quietly of softer times

And gently falls the wind swept snow

And passing winds that cannot show

Those secrets that are lost, e’en in the finding

California Mountain Sky

The traveller with his head held high

Up on the ridge backed pass and winding

Past the skyline, past the trees

California morning Breeze

Strays through my hair and ties me to her wand’ring..

‘cross the leaves to firmer ground

Your silence echoing around

Then final world of half a lifetime’s wondering

Now high above the rising pass

She lays and names her home at last

Now California mountain range

Take me in your arms of stone

And make of me a place called home

And lay to rest my empty dreams of passing time

Let my feet move to the dance

Of knowing luck and certain chance

Where no one hears the evening fall, and blue stars shine

Take my hand and lead me high

Where the passing trail can’t wind

Beyond the snowline, where the sun is falling

Place my hand upon the clouds

And ease my body to the ground

Let me rise to greet the early morning

Where rock is smooth as polished glass

Swallowed In memories of her past

Where still your silent watchfulness is standing

And somewhere there - I’ll raise my head

When sky turns rust and rivers red

And ask a little understanding

California mountain range

White edged against the blue encircling sky

Ain’t no river blue enough, nor no mountain high

I’ll weep not nor ask you why

Say only that I’ll rest here while I’m waiting

And then upon your silent sky

We’ll walk to clouds and there goodbye

Will change into a new dawn’s making…