This Mountain

breathtaking is the only way to describe the view stretching
below us, outward from the lush and leafy slope beneath our
feet
the verdant hills are alive with the creation of the benevolent
creator, the germs the insects the spiders the rodents the mammals the
men
the cycle of life goes on here, eating and being eaten, and only
the strongest live on to create another generation that will call this
home
this mountain, this pile of rock and dirt and foliage, overseen by
birds of prey; an eagle a vulture a robin a sparrow a crow a
hawk
crumbling shale and granite and sandstone mashed together and
eroding just enough to contour into beauty unblemished, perfect and
wild
untamed are these lands, far from the hue and cry of mechanical men
who have surrounded themselves with burnished steel, concrete and
glass
living air conditioned lives with stereophonic sound and a myriad of
devices with which to keep the wildlife away, lighting the night, blocking the
stars
from their towers of ignorance and comfortability they no longer can
see the rosy orange and purple glow of the sun’s diluted light streaming through
air
as that great ball of light and heat and life rolls on through her charted course
and falls beneath the horizon; the emerald and hazy horizon farther than we can
see
perched on our ledge, our shelf of shelter underneath the overhanging crags
and cliffs yet far above the treetops that reach up to us, straining from lower
ground
the ground that is carpeted with pine needles fallen leaves animal dung gravel
that has fallen from the heights where we sit and feel mother earth breathing around
us
that mother who gives us life, every one, who nurtures us, feeds us, clothes us
and strains to protect us and to teach us how to care for her, for she is now growing
old
and weary, her resources growing shallow, and her immense immune system growing frail
against the onslaught of human stupidity; teach us, O mother, that we may
give
old that she is, we still feel her strength the wisdom the power the glory of
an age that has all but passed us by; and in the twilight of this night we love
her
and we love each other, holding on to pitiful handholds, clinging to one another
on the side of this outcropping of stone, knowing that we cannot stay but wishing we
could
how long will we remember this moment? how far away will our short and
useless lives carry us from this place of serenity? and have we now become
one?
the roads of man are invisible to us now, and their dwellings are smaller than
the toys of an impudent child who has scattered them out, losing them in the
fields
the sky the sunset the clouds the haze the rocks the trees the birds the leaves
the creatures of night are stirring, smelling, watching, waiting for us to
leave