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.
pilgrim 