AT THE FEET Poem by Jane Gibian

For Pip and Tom
The mistrusting mountains are silent
in their approval; grudging in their respect
for our clumsy efforts with the earth,

our movements minuscule like ants,
lacking the precision of machinery.
Skittish cows like plastic farm animals

are scattered from the hand of a child —
giant around the tufted ankles of mountains,
who are patient in their watching,

enduring the cloven feet of cattle, marking
their skin with tiny scars. Colonised amicably
by grass, the mountains observe it licking

the feet of trees in the undefined edges
of forest. They are grey with their brooding,
quiet in their mistrust.