But A Shadow

A poem

Green River, Wyoming (Thomas Moran, 1883)

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I remember, I was driving 
Lost and lonely as a cloud.
Burnished on the bronze horizon
Lay the late sun, old and proud.

Weaving through the sun-etched mountains,
Past the clear and crystal lake,
I was carried down the black-road
With a sorrow in my wake.

Every corner took me further
From the moment just behind,
But no closer to arriving
Anywhere I drove to find.

Crossing o'er the rolling shoulder,
Gate and green-field flying by,
Now the sun was hidden from me,
Now it hid its naked eye

But for one last glare of glory,
One last burning gaze it cast,
All of which was shed before me
On the mountain-side I passed.

Red as fire and red as ruby,
Red as vict'ry and defeat
Was the mountain-side reflected
In the crystal lake beneath.

Silent as a meditation,
Still as death and warm as life
As I passed, the blazing vision
Cut me like the surgeon's knife,

And for one ecstatic moment
I imagined all I knew
Here to be the mere reflection,
There beneath me was the true

Glorious land, the place I longed for
Where I might my sorrow take.
Here I was beneath the water,
There it was above the lake.

Just as quickly as the moment
Came, it went, and I was still
Driving, driving lost and lonely,
Over crest and under hill.

Though I couldn't shake the feeling,
And I cannot shake it still,
That this world is but a shadow,
But a shade of all that will

Rise at last upon arriving 
At the end of all we seek,
Past the edge of crystal water,
Past the blazing mountain peak.

So I drive on, still the sorrow,
Still it follows in my wake,
But no shadow, shade or sorrow
Can that moment's memory take.

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