From the Valley

There is an ancient hum, here,

left by the grave of budding industry.

Here, where the cliffs of Signal and Lookout

are our overseers and protectors:

those mountains with degraded

nobility: now common hills on the brink

of Appalachia.

 

1994: I dreamed I would be the first man

            to see the valley from Signal’s peaks.

Insurmountable peaks. Lofty dreams.

Then came the automobile,

and today foreigners summit by way of gasoline;

I sit in quiet protest, as the hum spreads to

heights formerly unmolested.

 

Mount Everest: the top of the world!

Only a blemish on the Earth’s face,

some day will be a scar.

 

And then there is the ocean:

beautiful degrader! Eroder!

Leveler and humbler of all exalted heights!

The crashing of wave after wave after wave

and the soil falls into the depths

and the ice sheets splinter and crack,

the land is retreating, and they say

the water is warming, reefs are dying and

soon there will be no more land

and we must learn to live underwater.

War! Treachery! The flags are raised

and still the ocean swells tear

sand into the darkness.

 

Early morning: the sunrise.

Between the mountains, the leaves

produce a green glow – each a flag of peace

waving as if to say, we will not give in –

as the sun shines through into Lookout Valley.

A wood thrush is on my windowsill,

drowning out an ancient hum.