Faith Hope & Fiction

Quality Online Fiction, Poetry, and Essays

In the White Mountains

A Poem by John Grey


Above the tree-line,

the climb.

breath and air

never more unalike,

tufts of grass,

otherwise bare,

scattered stones

like old wise ones,

hands blue,

long legs shortening

like lungs,

looking up,

a stuttering whistle

scrambling to

the white-capped summit

in song,

a stroke of awe

anxious for a pen,

and down below,

old oaks and maples,

old world ablaze.

on a mountain ledge…

this is as far as I go…

I can climb no more

though I can write higher.


John Grey is an Australian poet, U.S. resident. He has been published in New Plains Review, Perceptions, Sanskrit, South Carolina Review, Gargoyle, Owen Wister Review and Louisiana Literature, among others.


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