1/29
Mountain is crisp relief
from bright gray sky
slicing toward blue

2/1
Snow-white clouds flowing
past snow-white peak
A herd on the move

2/4
A gray gauze draped
over the southern sky
Mountain holds its breath

2/5
Every trace of the mountain
erased
by one full-sky cloud

2/6
Two pigeons then a crow
transect the face of the mountain
A woman turns back at the last moment

2/8
Heavy blade of cloud
shaped like a clavicle
scrapes the peak clean

2/11
Sleeping cat cloud
glowing with sunlight
curls around the highest peak

2/14
Merely a looming shadow
behind an endless gray
The mountain today

2/15
Dressed as a volcano
with ashen smoke clouds
A crow calls five times

2/18
Again this winter storm
has stolen all the mountains
held hostage with a list of impossible demands

2/20
A covering of pine trees
like a coat of bristled fur
Warming temps & water drips on my hat

2/21
The wind pulls a halo of snow
from the mountaintop
The morning sanctified

2/22
A crow dances with the wind
A cloud brushes the unruly hair
of the mountain

2/25
Trucks passing below
Clouds passing above
Stillness at the center of the mountain

2/26
In the place where rock meets sky
backlit clouds glow with something
very close to a song

2/28
Raven too distant to be sure it’s a raven
though the air is crisp enough to make out
individual trees on the mountain slope

3/4
A mom and her toddler
at the door with apologies for being early
Managed a glance & thought, “Cloud”

3/6
BBs of snow pelt my face
trying to look at the sky so
all I can see is no mountain

3/7
And just like that:
A crystal blue sky is back
The mountain now in sharp detail

3/8
The lit cloud too bright to look at
Last year’s dead leaf freed from melting snow
dances across the street

3/11
With the time change, the sun is
no longer blocked by the Elks Lodge
making me squint to look to the sky

3/12
The sun pulls the sky
into something beyond white or yellow
A new color the eye can’t really see

3/13
A large bird
blasted white by the sun
cuts the waves of also-blasted cloud

3/14
Bands of light and cloud,
dark and sky, fresh snow
on the shimmering slopes

3/18
Pulling a blanket of cloud
over its head, the mountain ignores
all calls from the new day

3/19
Pigeons white against the blue
Starlings black against the dull brick
Sun too bright to keep this up

3/20
The mountains obliterated
by snowclouds & gloom
on this first day of spring

3/21
Candlewick of cloud
at the tip of the mountain
set ablaze by the undiminished sun

© 2025 by Marc Beaudin