Again the superlative, the hottest 

 noons, the coldest nights, are here. 

 No more would the yew bedeck its 

 lateral branches with scarlet waxen 

 berries, nor some blue-eyed myrtle- 

 covered mound invite repose. No 

 more would the delighted eye rest 

 on orange scarlet beads, set in their 

 heavy, yellow-ribbed leaves, nor the 

 tropical blue ball that its long point- 

 ed lily leaves reveal; the flaming rose 

 hips no more, nor the elder, nor the 

 Oregon grape would hang its tiny pur- 

 ple clusters amid the leafy reds and 

 yellows; no more the great, indigo 

 fruit of the sarvis and the huckle- 

 berry, no more all the colourful 

 growing things. Instead are rocks, 

 rocks smooth, rocks rough, rocks 

 big whole ledges and mountains of 

 them rocks small as sifted gravel, 

 the track of a snow slide. 



For hours we toiled, heels often 

 higher than head, until rebellion 

 shrieked from every muscle. Three 

 thousand feet up one obelisk, as 

 many down, uncounted stretches on 

 the ridges, up and down, rocks, rocks, 

 not a patch of green level or large 

 enough for a grave. 



