But Luck Is Not On Their Side

June Tabor: Finisterre

The kings of the world are growing old,
and they shall have no inheritors.
Their sons died while they were boys,
and their neurasthenic daughters abandoned
the sick crown to the mob.

The mob breaks it into tiny bits of gold.
The Lord of the World, master of the age,
melts them in fire into machines,
which do his orders with low growls;
but luck is not on their side.

The ore feels homesick. It wants to abandon
the minting houses and the wheels
that offer it such a meager life.
And out of the factories and payroll boxes
it wants to go back into the veins
of the thrown-open mountain,
which will close again behind it.

--Rainier Maria Rilke
from The Book of Pilgrimage, II,24
translation by Robert Bly

BRAHMA TEMPLE / ZOROASTER TEMPLE
SUMNER BUTTE / ZOROASTER TEMPLE
ELVIS AND ELVIRA ABOVE HANCE RAPID
CRYSTAL RAPID BEGINS
THE CRYPTS OF WINTERFELL
ESCALANTE BUTTE WITH RAINBOW
NATTY DREAD RIDES AGAIN