Morning in Montana

Fine ice made satin ribbon of the road that strode
The high plateau-land of the Great Divide.
Tall, ponderous ranges flanked my either side
And, softly cumbered with the heavy snows
that deeply drifted from all winter’s throes,
Resembled august and colossal rows
Of pallid, smoothly tumbled jasper.
The early morning sunshine peered among
Dispersing then combining clouds that clung
Awhile to nearby peaks, then briskly flung
At me a few standoffish banks of fog.
The mists that ever shroud the mountains
Roiled round my car like flustered gods
As if inquiring why I trod so high,
For now we all were wandering in the sky,
The clouds, the sunlight, and the road, and I.
But as I drove that lonely plateau road,
So coldly drawn between such silent hills,
The heavens briefly turned to stained glass mode:
The sunlight found a place to filter through.
The clouds that fumbled near me brightened to
Light rose and salmon cotton candy hues.
The snow-bound mountains all around me too,
in bandied light that danced and leapt and fell,
Blushed in several shades of faint pastel,
And momentarily the universe was pink;
Then all turned back to grey.