My Brown Mountain - Aug. 9, 2025

I wake up next to a tan high-rise

of beige boulders and sheered sandstone,

nearly plant-less and shadowless

that creamed-coffee color

of a desert mountain

you’d think, and you’d be right,

that it was boring, without life

or anything eye-pleasing to

serenade a vista that climbs

ten thousand feet into the sky

but as the sun crests the summit

leaks of deep purple dribble down

the canyons, there’s a blood red

glow along the ridgeline and sudden

orange roads shoot across the sky

it is sunset fanfare for a soul

that awakens at night, as stars

outline the pitch-black peaks and

moonlight the risen rock

I realize every night

I don’t know this mountain at all