I

Am a

Steep, silent

Scree-strewn slope

Of furry, fir-tree foliage

Bewooded, bewitched, Byzantine

Patterns of pebbled mosaics, austere

Variations of grey and white and green,

Where life clings by its root-tips to the thin

Dun-streaked pockets of lime-strewn loam. Linking,

Arm-in-arm  along the crests and crevices, stand stern

Sylvan sentries,  the god-appointed guardians of the peaks.