Tissiacks Tears

“[F]or I was absorbed in the great Tissiack [Half Dome]-- I have gazed on Tissiack a thousand times -- in days of solemn storms, and when her form shone divine with the jewelry of winter, or was veiled in living clouds; and I have heard her voice of winds, and snowy, tuneful waters when floods were falling; yet never did her soul reveal itself more impressively than now." - John Muir

Tissiack’s tears fall from her rain-stained face,
her profile one with the lichened rock.
She, the spirit of the Ahwahneechees,
speaks silently, with a voice of winds,
of times past and their presence.

 My tent at the Lodge opened to her
and for a year I gazed upon and  
thought I had begun to understand –
but youth is distracted by what is
and can’t see what can’t be seen.

Years later, I return to her and sit
in the moonlight at Mirror Lake.
As my eyes tire and become unfocused,
I see her missing half in the water –
her half that isn’t, her mystic moiety.

She then whispers of unhalves, and in the
rippled, reflective waters appears
my unhalf – those thoughts, unthought and
that life, unlived – I now share in her tears
and embrace her unseen soul.