Crater Lake

[PoorMonger]

A blind man sees
Crater Lake
reading a scale model
with his hands.
The interpreter
tries to describe
the myriad of
blueish hues -
the sky's reflection
plays upon the water.
The blind man
thinks he remembers
something of the color
from childhood.
When asked
about distance -
he says he knows
from walking.
In darkness,
he doesn't mention
and smiles.
Imagining -
Beauty.

[rock]

1. Nice poem

At first I thought it was composed of haikus, but all the sentences appear to be 16 syllables, not 17. Am I missing something?

[PoorMonger]

2. Thanks

And no, you aren't missing something. Pretty much everything I write is free verse - I didn't and don't do syllable counts.
when I write. Though if they are all 16's then that's cool. Ha

[Mme. Defarge]

3. The Columbia Gorge

The Columbia Gorge


It takes courage to confront beauty
at its own level. Panoramas
are domains of past or future,
not the present; beauty for spectators,
distant and safe.

The scenic highway cuts high into the cliffs
as the river did an eon ago,
and beauty lies beyond and below.
Parallel to the Columbia, at sea-level runs I-84.
Twin channels, un-identical
one fluid, the other firm.

Traveling east from Portland
trees separate the twins until,
at the first clearing,
the river slides into view like a crosscut saw.

At sixty-miles an hour I collide head on -
gut-level with the gorge,
and by beauty I am severed at the waist.

Loretta Dryden Fischer