I grow up alone
in a world teeming with life.
Every day I reach higher,
but you’ll never see my age-
only my might,
which to you is fixed
in stone
and constant
as the winter winds.
I rumble and roar,
I weep and remorse,
I laugh and make merry,
I change my own course.
But to you I am silent,
a gentle giant unprovoked,
unfeeling and distant,
nothing but a rock to climb
and build upon
and carve out.
I’ve seen many lives
many species,
many races,
flit across the land and leave
it in traces.
Their spans are but a blip
on my grander scale,
and one moment they’re
bleating and breathing
with life,
and the next they’re the dirt that
combs the countryside.
But I remember every one,
each soul and spirit,
though their lives are but seconds
in my ancient existence.
And they remember me,
but they’ll never know,
for in a world teeming with life,
I grow up alone.

I’ve spent the past few days in the beautiful mountains of New England, and I only wish that I could stay longer. My trip did make me wonder; if a mountain could, what would it think? Think of us? Think of itself? How does time pass for a mountain? Then voila, the above poem was hastily produced.