The above painting is by Jonathon Earl Bowser

Next

    Old Man Mountain


He sat on high, implacable, immovable,

With his brother and sister peaks,

The wise Old Man Mountain -

Perhaps not so wise -

Head crowning above the clouds showing snowy tresses

He sat.

Through decades and centuries,

Through eras and ages and epochs,

Paying no attention to the forces at play,

Not able to know that conspiring

Against him were wind,

And rain and snow and creeping rivulets,

Such petty forces in contrast to the massive

Granite cliffs and blue-icy glaciers and boulders,

All towering parts of him, so, proudly,

He sat.

And ever so slowly, The giagantic craggy mountain

became a stooped, rounded hill, a geologic footnote

to his awesome past, and a warning to all who would

Assume the title Old Man Mountain.

Listen to the wind; it tells its tale in soft moans

And lonely distant murmurings through foothill pines,

Whispering

"Stand not against me, but bend with me;

Be not the rock, but the sail;

Be not the rigid peak, but the soaring bird."


Gary

copyright © 2004

more of Gary's work