They are neither alive nor dead,
just old and slow to move
They sometimes sit for centuries
before they shift their stones

Below them aspens clatter
all summer
in unison with meadow grasses
Thunder follows lightning
to the ground

In mid September when
aspens lose their leaves
the winds spin over peaks,
wail through canyons

Earthen firmaments,
beautiful from a distance,
mountains do not hear us

They do not speak

It is we who give them
names and voices that sound
in echoes from our calls
for the silence to answer back