Of Monoliths and Magic Light
I am Mountain
I pierce the clouds
I touch the stars
Protector of the People
Symbol of the gods
Yet I kneel at the feet
Of the Great Spirit
I Am Mountain
I am Mountain
I am Mountain
I pierce the clouds
Hider of the Winds
Protector of the People
Symbol of the gods
I know the tracks
Of Bear and Deer
And Mountain Lion
I know the secret trails
Of Rabbit and Fox
I know where Eagle nests
Under the edge of the bluffs,
And where Wild Turkey
Eats red berries
I know where Heron hides
In the trees by the creek
I have heard his cry
In the morning
I hear the snoring
of Thunder
As he sleeps in the night
With his lightning bow tucked
Close by his side
His gift of rain swells the creeks
With new life
And leaves shining rainbow bridges
For sunbeams to dance on
I am Mountain
I pierce the clouds
I touch the stars
Protector of the People
Symbol of the gods
Yet I kneel at the feet
Of the Great Spirit
s.m.chisam--February 1992
Hibernation
The foothills
like tawny brown bears sleeping,
their summer golden fur
asleep through fall and winter,
awaken to spring�s green
Awakening Spell
It is the twilight hour
The hour when the aspen glow dies in the west
The hour when all the shadows become one
and the light fades from the heavens
The time the mountains talk together.
They lie there together
Yet apart
Holding hands at the stream
Which divides and connects them.
A singular sound fills the air,
The sound of a mountain flute
Played like no other.
The flautist...well it doesn't matter
the flautist's name...all that matters is that
the sound is the melody
the spell that can awaken the mountains.
The animals find shelter off the mountain
When they hear that singular music
For they know...
Wind-blown willows mingle
And their chuckles fill the air
With music
A soft jazz, with a cricket backbeat
As the blues, the lazy velvet blues
Slowly fill the sky with stars
And the mountains awaken
Just for one night
The stream becomes a dancing creek
Bubbling with laughter and joy
and the trees talk
Of lives, of loves gained and lost
While the mountains were sleeping.
The mountains listen, gathering it all
Into their giant hearts
And then slowly, slowly
They dance...an inch in either direction,
together and apart.
s.m.chisam
Hurricane Ridge
Late afternoon in the ancient forest.
We drive, ever eager, ever upwards, through the clouds
and the waterfall-riven snow meadows,
until we top out at an incredible height.
Across the deep canyon rise even higher peaks,
either the home of the gods,
or mayhaps the gods themselves
in an earthly disguise
for surely they make their own weather
and they play among the thunderclouds,
and they hide, eventually, a very small red balloon.
The deer play on their slopes,
in meadows late covered by snow fields,
instead of small white flowers
warm to the touch,
blankets of white
cold to the feet and hands
covering trails
deluding the meadows into thinking
it must still be winter
instead of the middle of July!
We attempt to leave the gods across the way,
to turn our gazes to Neptune
and the promised view of a strait from a nearby trail,
but the shoulder high snow,
and the orange and red danger signs, turn us back.
Our gaze returns to the mountain gods,
and one can almost hear their laughter.
They wash themselves in thunderheaded cumulous,
with the fresh scent of fir and pine
and stretch their rocky backbones across the miles,
then silently rest upon their huge beds of granite and limestone
A hawk soars silently above, watching all,
wingtips stretching above the acquiescent gods.
8/2/99 smchisam
Sunrise from Mather Point
Nothing stirs
The canyon is covered in shadows
Raven sleeps in pine tree
Coyote in his cave, and trilobites
in the deep-canyon rocks of eons ago
Thundercloud gods from last night's storm
fill the horizon, trying to hold back Dawn
but she pushes them up and diminishes their anger
by playfully tinting their edges pink and gold
then tells them secrets
that make them blush
like maidens
s.m.chisam--August 1996
Sunrise from Yaki Point
Like sands pouring through an hourglass
the river wanders through it
tumbling then still
like the eons of crafting
and sculpting
Time has been artistic here
Sunlight gilds burnished and corrugated stone ridges
as they rise behind closer shadowed monoliths and
dusty rose escarpments
and before a horizontal line
of blurry glowing orange and strangely blue ridges.
A black crow lands at my feet.
3/2000 smc
Of Monoliths and Magic Light
Blue mist and white light fill my sight,
awaken my senses as dawn
spills gently into the great valley,
spills softly over massive granite slabs,
turning them blue then white then slowly gray,
spills and fills the valley with magic light
which dances in the treetops and starts the birds singing
and tells the deer it is time to find the acorns,
spills onto the river, touching its surging rapids with white froth
and its slower, meandering bends with a gleam of emerald and blue.
spills into my spirit,
filling me with wonder,
whispering ancient stories
of monoliths and magic light.
s.m.chisam--July 1997
Misty Mountain Morning
Misty mountain morning calls us softly
takes our steps up the hill
past ancient stone steps
carved down a green moss hill
past a creek with tumbled white rocks
and lacy ferns waving fronds in
the crisp autumn morning air
Past an old wooden railing
hand hewn who knows how many years ago
where we stop
and lean
and look
and talk
but the misty mountain morning calls us on
past the houses to look up at
silver maned mountain...
Tahquitz,
thrusting its granite peak
above the trees
the view framed by pine and aspen
bough and branch
Then our feet turn towards home
back to the cabin
past a tree like a torch
the turning leaves looking
like tiny wind dancers
warming the air
just by their color and motion
in the sunlight
then our feet are cushioned
by a thick carpet
of tan pine needles
and we smell the fire in the fireplace
and we return, reluctantly,
from our misty mountain morning.
s.m.chisam
The Headlands
I am the hills above the rocky headland
beloved of the sea
and it crashes and twists and turns at my shores,
connecting me and washing over me
sometimes with turbulence
sometimes with a calm placidity
but one night
upon my rocks
when I expected only the calm surging
of the water's white foam
over my toes
there came a storm of such magnificence
that it resonates still
on every hill
in every valley
on each plant and
in each grain of sand
on my slopes.
The storm started way off
In the summer blue sky, in that twilight sky
and the clouds piled high with energy and longing
and cloaked me in their soft gray blanket
and stole with me into the night
and there we danced, the storm and I,
the lightning at first lightly tickling the edges,
dancing along the hills and valleys,
then gaining my peaks
and charging every fiber of the tops of the hills
with light and electrical impulses
which coursed into my many layers...
the thunder rolled and the ground
shook from the intensity as we danced
rolling over the headlands, up the granite cliffs
then down, deep down into the valleys, bringing up the tide,
charging the wave crests with thunder and lightning
until one could not tell the waves from the storm clouds
and they became one guiding force,
filling my crevasses
drowning me with white foam within and without
then finally, finally, that long bolt of lightning
which lifted me and then broke me asunder
and I fell crumbling into the arms of the storm,
surrounded by lightning,
buried by thunder,
weeping for that intensity, for that beauty,
for that powerful surge which...
slowly passed...
the storm's surges calming, calming...
faint traceries of lightning on the hills,
the trees on my slope sagging
with the weight of the torrential downpour...
the tide goes out...
and each time comes in less...
and the clouds rise and look down upon my slopes
and bright stars replace the lightning
as the clouds fade back
leaving mysterious midnight blue.
s.m.chisam
High Mountain Song
Against the opal bedlam of the morning sky,
their stillness a majesty of strength,
the great gray mountains rise invioble
from the patchwork plains,
evolving imperceptibly
in relation to laws and eternal rhythms
that push or sway or erode or carve
with wind and water, sun and time,
prodigious moves and changes
which slowly push their granite egos
into place.
Before my eyes the blue-white light
silvers the air,
and trees emerge from the shadows of the night
Quietly I have waited here,
listening for the susseration
whispered across mountain peaks
and down into valleys
with soft slow drum beats
the mountains pulse alive,
a backbeat for the wilderness
and I look up
reach into open sky
my hands reach into sunlight, empty,
then suddenly
filled with All
a living extension of the steep rock
joining earth and sky,
and I feel my feet against the stone.
I walk down the slope of the rock
in the high valley
where the sunlight is clear and warm
and the living air shimmers with itself
and the light falls like balmy rain
to the rocks and the roots,
the creatures and the creeks.
The iquid light seeps
through impreceptibly changing cracks
as it creates shelter out of shadows
and permeates the surges of living water.
The light transforms, awakens light itself.
My heart singing along with the peaks
that both transcend and shelter me,
I leave the bare rocky slope
for the forest.
Here the sunlight explodes outward into green,
highlighting sunfilled, deep, living needles
which pierce my heart
with their beauty.
Dew-laden ankle deep grass
glistens with the intracacy of
webbed light
and the brushsoft sweep of my feet.
Here in secret gardens tended only
by deer and bear and wolf,
among wild grass and fern and rocks,
alone among the trees
and trusting all here,
I can listen with my heart
and hear
all that ever was
and all that ever will be.
My hands bring a cool leaf
to press against sun-warmed cheek
and for a moment nothing moves.
The air holds nothing and everything.
I sit in a nest of rocks
within a larger nest of
ancient trees, ridged with black bark and lichen,
listening so intently even my skin feels
every shifting nuance of sound.
Then the stately blue-green firs fill with wind
and mutter their soft murmurings through the forest,
spooling the yarn of their laughter,
round and round,
weaving life from the threads tucked in their hearts,
spilling loose,
wrapping me in their magic
while weaving the tapestry of the Earth.
As the shadows shorten and then lengthen
I walk among the trees,
set my hands against the rough bark
touching them and singing with them.
The love of all that is here wells up in me
and I weep for the strength of it.
I feel my feet against the stone,
a living extension of the steep rock
joining earth and sky,
and I look up
reaching into open sky
between the trees
and my hands fill with light
and my heart slows with
the slow evening backbeat
of this wild place,
this mountain where
quietly I have stayed this long while,
listening for the susserations
whispered across the peaks
where, finally, alpen glow
sets them afire
and shows the glory
of the changes time has wrought.
My heart sings its joy
as my arms lower slowly to my sides.
The sun descends below the granite crests,
still sentinels standing watch
as the fiery bedlam of the sky
is relieved by the cool quiet blues
of the night
and the rising full moon
lights my way back.
s.m.chisam--3/29/00
Nature Poetry Directory
fe-smc 2000