We have our own private mountains, but are they already too tired from waiting for us?
Etel Adnan
a break in the rain
itself a break in the snow
i take a chance on a walk
on my own mountain
the one i live on but also
the one that lives in my head
without their leaves
and most of their birds
the moss-footed trees
couldn’t be quieter
where snow lay until yesterday
the forest floor glistens
the sun is a bright wound
that soon heals over
two ravens converse
from the tops of adjacent trees
croaking high and low
they fly off into the clouds
then the fluting of a goose
with 27 followers
so low over the trees i swear
i feel the breeze from their wings
the tiredness drains
from my legs as i walk
i’m stopped by gnarled
skeletons of mountain laurel
one still clinging
to a fallen oak leaf
what is this blight
where are the snows of yesteryear
i pass a hollow tree just in time
to see its resident porcupine
tail like a spiny piñata
disappearing up inside
below on the road a fresh litter
of chewed-off hemlock twigs
the creek is high but clear
boisterous but well-behaved
yesterday’s ice already seems
as far-fetched as a dream
but how is it that even in winter
a mountain can give clean water
to the mink and muskrats downstream
the heron and trout
a forest grows fitter as it ages
better at filtering water
better at storing carbon
even in steep mountain soil
so the oaks as they sleep
are making fresh compost
growing the mountain
they grow on
attentive in a way that i
alleged part owner could never be
whose woods these really are
i think i know
a land trust oversees their right
not to be destroyed
but the mountain belongs
as all mountains do to the moon
earth’s own private mountain
alive only in our oceanic bodies
which are made for walking
for circling like pilgrims or scavengers
for going from full to dark
to full again