Tony Jennett - Hills

Or pasture clad or stripped to their bare bones
Of porphyry, bleached carbonate or mica-schist.
Their silent mirth makes mock of time's tick-tock
Dancing slow sarabands in ragged robes of mist.

Seen from below they're ever on the move
In seeming march against a scudding sky
And from their tops see how the sunlight hops
From vale to peak more swift than winking eye.

When cloud-shrouded they seem especial close.
Unseen, my clumsy questing feet they dog
And trick the things I know with vertigo
And whisper water-songs through autumn's fog

How winter's garb becomes them; so remote
And robed like brides aloof in virgin snow.
They hide their timeless sense in innocence
And smile at secrets they alone can know.

I love them all; the low, the high, the great
I lavish on them all my dreams and hopes:
My transcience upon their permanence,
That I may dwell for ever on their slopes.

Tony Jennett

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hills/