Ted Kooser Poem

Visiting Mountains

by Ted Kooser

The plains ignore us,
but these mountains listen,
an audience of thousands
holding its breath
in each rock. Climbing,
we pick our way
over the skulls of small talk.
On the prairies below us,
the grass leans this way and that
in discussion;
words fly away like corn shucks
over the fields.
Here, lost in a mountain’s
attention, there’s nothing to say.

- Ted Kooser from Flying at Night
© University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985.