Lost Hermitage of Youth

Lost Hermitage of Youth
    
Township Baileys of melted donuts    
Instead of Irish Coffee    
Where we sanctify the sweetness of the air    
With natural cooling for our crispness    
Down the road to peak 10,443    
Where the steeply forested valley    
Rises with our footsteps    
On our pathless ascent past log cabin ruins    
Artist lady speaks homilies to Denver    
Like a disciple of the western sky    
My pondering meets hers    
“But the culture is a fallen church,    
On the riverbanks of love.”    
“Denver is a cultural wasteland,” she laments.    
The gray-haired engineer of dreams says    
“Look at how spry and limber John is.    
Could that be the genius of his youth?”    
Her words sigh with the wind:    
“His wings are those of boyhood    
On the cusp of manhood.”    
We overlook the gulf of time    
Where evergreens face us across the valley    
Carpeted with snow powder    
Like a gingerbread castle    
Covered with confectionary sugar    
The old man’s wonder awakens ours    
“Those kids sure must get spring fever.”    
Where snowflake chromosomes
Find shade under conifer boughs
On golden crowns with diamonds
Whose facets are miniature glaciers
In an Arctic sea where time sheds tears