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White Mountains, New Hampshire
by Sylvia Merrill Beaupré

Passing through a narrow chasm,
walls of rock dwarf me,
age-old algae and lichen laugh
at how temporary I am, how

insignificant among sheer cliffs,
boulders strewn by history’s
massive glacial ice sheets
gouging the land.

On a day saturated by sun, wind,
waterfall in rainbow cascade,
beech and birch and hemlock,
here the height of human conceit
would be to think I matter.

Yet, I am a part of all I have met
and though hushed,
humbled, all the same
here I am

suspended vertically on a single stair,
my own human hand on this moss-laden wall,
touching time.