Isabella Dalzell

Alpes Maritimes

 

The mountain lake drips

streams like globs of mercury

down snow-dusted, fir- shaded

razored valleys carved by ice

inching into limestone.

 

Trickling waters irrigate the

terraced slopes of homesteads

and flood the alluvial plain

sweeping, pebbled and sandy into

the azure pond of the Mediterranean.

 

In that many-pinnacled landscape

a wolf sits, alone, and howls

white-throated into the

bilberry-blue of the sky

nose pointing at stellar sparks.

 

Moon glowing soft, yellow as butter

ears pricked tense and quivering

listening for a reply.