I am awake hours before the sun,
looking at the dark shadow
that is my mountain. Its hulking curve
lumbers and shifts slightly
with my every breath.
Whenever I come back to this place
after years of absence, it is the mountains
which startle me the most, their size
always shrinking in my mind
like the old memory of a broken arm.
Though the minutes pass slow
it is time well spent, waiting
with the world as it shakes off the night,
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small details quietly gathering
beneath the shirt tails of morning.
Justin Evans is the author of eight poetry collections, including “Cenotaph” (2024) and “A Walled Pleasance” (2025).
This story appears in the November 2025 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.