Faded

I wonder if when Nature’s pen has sketched and lined my face,
Into a survey map reflective of some mountainous place,
With artful shading rendering the passing of each year:
My frame a faded ivory chart of well-explored frontier…

Will you still scale my mountains, will my valleys still amaze,
With all their once new secrets- and will you still spend your days,
Exploring hidden places like each time there is your first,
And dip your mouth into my drying ponds to slake your thirst?

When verdant fields grow sparser with the coming of the frost,
Will you forsake my landscape and despair for what is lost?
Or will you rediscover sheltered on a calm plateau,
My wildflower blooming beneath a blanket of soft snow.

With all the quirks of gravity and shifting sands of time-
I wonder, will I always be your most exciting climb?

~ A Question of Geography by Belladagio