For Grete

In memory of Grete Perleberg

Steep mountainface,
you haul yourself up into cloudy mists,
which surround you like ghostly vapours;
then drying and humid,
invisible, you escape our open eye.

You, hard rock, are homeward bound.
Our mathematical eye
sees your heavy atoms whirl faster
than a waterfall plunges into its depths.

While falling you stand,
a touching presence for our hands.

In dreams we are equal.
Your smooth seamless seams open for me,
and I part you.

We move one through the other,
amongst and within each other –
but whole.

11/17/1986