Yosemite

Only simple things need be said about this place.

It is for silence and the expanding heart,

The mind grown quiet. These giant cliffs, aching with light,

Shine from some Xanadu of inner memory.

Rock-falls to the dry canyon, the pellucid

Swift green river and the pines.

Wild as a cry in space the hawk soars, skirting

The distant snow-peaks, the streaked cataracts. Time, moving over rooted granite, mirror-flecked

With mica, lichen-tufted, leaves no stain.

Enclosed in a translucent lustre unlike air

This vast perfection. Fallen star.

Mysterious fragment, from some distant place,

Of a more perfect planet than we know.