Two friends and I had skied the Rocky Mountains.

It was time to head back to the Texas’ flat plains.

 

As we drove east away from the mountains

Longing and grief co-mingled into joy.

 

I sat in the backseat, alone, mesmerized.

Watching the mountain slowly fade in size.

 

There was the sad fading grandeur of color,

Mountains now stained with a lavender squalor.

 

No longer seen were forests, forest green.

Instead trees disappeared, no longer seen.

 

Snow-capped mountains above the timberline,

Became barely hills, now, beauty’s sideline.

 

The vast panorama, once majestic in splendor,

Now only alive in memory’s pretender.

 

But the heart alive, when sight now fails

Tells of a Creator in colorful details.

 

No portrait could contain what I had seen,

But hope still alive, in the land in between.

 

The wondrous object of happiness gone,

But the mystery of joy now invisibly drawn.