Mist

So often have I watched the skirt of morning
Catch on a granite spike of jutting rock;
And spill mist swiftly down the tumbling hills,
Into valleys full with quietnesses,
And smelling of dank wood rot;
Valleys listening to the ceaseless sound
Of waters laving clearly cool;
Over smooth pitted stones, into some young brown pool.

And watching. I have thought the mist should lull
This town of scurrying men and honking horns;
And clanking of brakes, machine— machine surging up to my ears
—Has silence ever been ?

—Vesta Emanuel.