Accessed by closed road
Now – runs beside new tunnels
Route for walkers – and sightseers
The river below
Fast flowing winter water
Working through weak layers
Carves natural direction
The gorge deepens
Shaped by erosion and uplift
Where rafters course in noisy passage
Led by bright kayak
Navigating boulders and eddies
Throw echoes on rock
Steep sides of brown and grey bulk
Rising from aqueous green
Flanked by low trees
And snow-flattened grasses
Waiting for spring
This place
Of compression and force
Buckled and fractured
Cracked and dissolved
With smoothed hoods over hollowed rock
Inspiration of architects
Builds ideas in a city
Far away
