Eminence

“The mountains are so dominant
that some days the people refuse
to look at them as children
turn away from the fathers who beat them”
Jim Harrison – Songs of Unreason

I am beaten in my heart
the pulse racing in another direction
to climb is to clamber, slip-sliding fall
ascension of vertigo, the swoon that swivels
upside-down and sea-sick in the sky
we people of the valleys cannot turn our eyes away
ever rising from the horizon, clad in clouds
moody as a chameleon – livid, vivid purple peaks
casts from blue to yellow and paler still
wafery opaque in wishful moments of its vanishing
but the bluff is called, the mountain never moves
resolute as rock, tormenter of flesh
the sacrifices it has blessed through time
are never enough

Joining Jilly for her pick of Jim Harrison prompts on Day 12 of 28 Days of Unreason
Also heading for the Imaginary Garden and a colourful Tuesday Platform

30 thoughts on “Eminence

  1. I like the way the sounds of your word choices played so beautifully together and added another level of feeling to tackling that ascent.

    1. ‘the going up was worth the coming down’ as Mr Kristofferson once said

    1. thank you Kerry – it was a coincidental match for the Tuesday Platform

  2. It is wonderful living underneath the gaze of a mountain. One’s eyes return to it again and again. I like the idea of vertigo as being “sea-sick in the sky”.

    1. thank you Vivian – your flowing reference was what I’d hoped for [but it also made me mindful that some mountains are deadly to the valley folk as currently in Haiti & Guatemala – sometimes hard to keep blogging in the face of such realities – hence my Considerations page ]

    1. was lucky that line came to me to start me off for this prompt – thank you!

    1. a momentum that is more like rolling downhill than climbing – many thanks Merril

  3. kaykuala

    tormentor of flesh
    the sacrifices it has blessed through time
    are never enough

    Gigantic and menacing it continues to appear formidable. Great close Laura!

    Hank

    1. all those animal and human sacrifices one way or another! – thank you Hank

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