Song Of The Highest Mountain
Do not believe that I forget you,
my shapely daughters, though you wander
down to the green-tongued fjord to paddle
and sun your brown pine-pelted shoulders.
The suckling glacier on my bosom
mewls and squirms, but still I mind you,
valleys that practise in my shadow
your first short steps and secret language.
Not a wild striplet of water
scrambles the heather-headed gullies
without my knowing; not a brash
brawl of young rivers revels southwards
down to the bay to spy forgotten
some dragon raider to ride their current.
When the faint harebell on the fellside
peals I hear it, when the fir cone
drops, beluga labours seawards
or white owl into silence launches.
I am beside, beneath, above you;
the mountain’s root is always in you.
my shapely daughters, though you wander
down to the green-tongued fjord to paddle
and sun your brown pine-pelted shoulders.
The suckling glacier on my bosom
mewls and squirms, but still I mind you,
valleys that practise in my shadow
your first short steps and secret language.
Not a wild striplet of water
scrambles the heather-headed gullies
without my knowing; not a brash
brawl of young rivers revels southwards
down to the bay to spy forgotten
some dragon raider to ride their current.
When the faint harebell on the fellside
peals I hear it, when the fir cone
drops, beluga labours seawards
or white owl into silence launches.
I am beside, beneath, above you;
the mountain’s root is always in you.
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