Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Mountain

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"A few hours' mountain climbing make of a rogue and a saint

two fairly equal creatures." 

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

"I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. 

And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land." 

~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Midweek Motif ~ Mountain

Mountains draw me to them, perhaps because I was born in the shadow of the Catskill Mountains and played on mountain sides as a child.   Heights and metaphors both scared me at one time, but I never could stay away.  Can you?  

Challenge:  Let's take each other into the mountains with this week's new poem ~ or at least onto one "mountain" of your choice.

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Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain

BY LI PO

TRANSLATED BY SAM HAMILL

The birds have vanished down the sky.

Now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me,

until only the mountain remains.

Li Po, “Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain,” translated by Sam Hamill from Crossing the Yellow River: 

Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese. Copyright © 2000 by Sam Hamill. 

excerpt from Chattanooga

BY ISHMAEL REED

    1 

    Some say that Chattanooga is the

    Old name for Lookout Mountain

    To others it is an uncouth name

    Used only by the uncivilised

    Our a-historical period sees it

    As merely a town in Tennessee

    To old timers of the Volunteer State

    Chattanooga is “The Pittsburgh of

    The South”

    According to the Cherokee

    Chattanooga is a rock that

    Comes to a point

    They’re all right

    Chattanooga is something you

    Can have anyway you want it

    The summit of what you are

    I’ve paid my fare on that

    Mountain Incline #2, Chattanooga

    I want my ride up

    I want Chattanooga

      . . . . 

    (Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation.)

Choices

BY TESS GALLAGHER

I go to the mountain side

of the house to cut saplings,

and clear a view to snow

on the mountain. But when I look up,

saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in

the uppermost branches.

I don’t cut that one.

I don’t cut the others either.

Suddenly, in every tree,   

an unseen nest

where a mountain   

would be.

                     

                              for Drago Štambuk

[Used here without permission.]  Tess Gallagher, "Choices" from Midnight Lantern:New and Selected Poems. 

Copyright © 2011 by Tess Gallagher.  Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press.  

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others 

in the spirit of the community.

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(Next week, Sumana's Midweek Motif will be Courage. )

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