A Poem takes a Mountain’s place²
A Mountain Bold, like a Giant of Old³
Gravity on the Mountains is Reversed –
Rather than Pulling us Down – it pulls us Up⁴
A Mountain sits upon a Plain in its Eternal Chair,
Its Observation Omnifold, its Inquest Everywhere⁵
Mountains drunk & mad with Elemental Wines
Rend the Seamless Mist – and Stand up Bare⁶
Oh child of Earth, attempt ye still to Rise, by
Mountains pil’d on Mountains, to the Skies⁷
The Soaring Cliff: my Hall of Meditation⁸
As we reach the Mountain’s side –
A wondrous Portal – opens Wide⁹
The Good of climbing Mountains
Is that Life is Reconsidered¹⁰
¹ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
² Wallace Stevens, The Poem that Took the Place of a Mountain
³ Anonymous, Loch Ina
⁴ Lâle Davidson, Calling Down the Mountain
⁵ Emily Dickinson, The Mountain Sat Upon the Plain
⁶ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh
⁷ Alexander Pope, Epistle IV
⁸ Reizan tr. Lucien Stryk & Takashi Ikemoto, The Myriad Differences
⁹ Louey Chisholm, The Pied Piper of Hamelin
¹⁰ Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted by James Miller in Examined Lives