POEM: Down the Valley [PoMo Day 9 – Haibun]

The air was dry and the valley was dry. Tufts of yellow grass clung to the hillside and to the edges of the valley floor -- where they joined with the barren, brown tines of bleak shrubbery. In the riverbed, smooth stones and boulders sprawled to the shoulders, far wide of the feeble stream that flowed at the moment. The water ran gray, having come from the edges of a glacier that scoured its way down a granite channel. And in the "V" far ahead, clouds as thick as the mountains were being lifted and dropped over a snowcapped peak, pretending they'd bring their moisture into this arid landscape.

mountain clouds
may become your fog, or
may sit in wait