Silverton by Leslie Irish Evans

Fifty miles north of Durango
pinkish-blue columbine grows
and tiny yellow butter and eggs
and strange purple elephant heads
peek up
between the boulders
and log houses that met
and merged
into a coarse tumbling powder
in the hundreds
of avalanches that have occurred,
crushing dreams of gold and
silver riches in their path.

Up in these mountains,
men have frozen to death
and women have watched
in their mirrors as
the killing winters etched themselves
into their faces and hands,
their children turning old
in the silver mines and spending
far too much time
on Blair Street.

Yet they stay.

Because
for every deadly avalanche
there is a sun
so dazzlingly close
you know you are nearer
to God.
For every crushing snow
there are mountain streams that
run turquoise,
singing at a pitch that speaks
to something
buried deep.

The locals know this.

And they know
(though winters may kill
and mines may shut down
and boulders continue to tumble)
wildflowers grow
fifty miles north of Durango
in the mountains of
Silverton.