The spirit of mountains have enthralled us for millenia. A small local hill in a unkown town becomes its landmark casting its shadow from east and west to determine the life style of that town. People respect it, fear it and often attribute a spirit to it. Whether Fujiyama, Kilimanjaro, Vesuvius, Alps or the Himalayas they all inspire a sense of awe and arouse mystical wonder. The Himalayas are reckoned as the seat of the gods and mystics and Yogis meditate there in its caves, while the holy river Ganges flows from its bosom to water the vast expanses of North India. A land with mountains is dominated by their presence which shapes the lives of the inhabitants, their philosophy, culture, and way of life. Once on a visit to the Himalayas I was so overwhelmed by their magnificence, stately beauty and awesome presence that I conceived a poem as a tribute to their majesty and ethereal splendour which I would like to share with you:
O F M O U N T A I N S
Mountains sit and watch forever
In ranges, after all they are sentient beings;
Some lurch forward, others are contained
And drop one great rock after an eternity
In the only movement they know.
Mountains in motion are so slow
Like petals of flowers unfolding,
Plant and mineral in invisible motion
To our own fast forward mode,
More imperceptible even than their shadows
Shifting with the sun, forms and shapes
Watching our movements
Below their pensive profiles,
Holding us in stony thoughts millenia old;
But they grow like tallest Everest, hold
Crystals in their breasts and reefs of gold
And let precious waters in rivulets flow,
Or then their innards blow sky-high
As volcanos
In their only flowering,
Growing with the lava flow another shoulder,
Thigh or infant boulder,
Spreading against the sky expressions of ash
with rumbling roars,
Shaking the earth with their millennial spring
Before resuming their timeless chores
Of rocky meditations swathed in snow.
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