Storm Poem

I am not a big fan of poetry. There I said it. There are certainly poems that I like but I usually don’t go out of my way to read poetry. The exception to this is music lyrics, although I recently heard one of our poet laureates proclaim that song lyrics are not poetry.

I think it is too bad that some people take that attitude. I think poetry and music have very strong links stretching far back into prehistory. The psalms in the bible were originally set to music as was the Song of Songs or the Song of Solomon (go figure). While these verses retain some poetic beauty, I bet they were quite remarkable when sung.

Music and lyrics in combination work together as mnemonic tools. The Odyssey and Illiad were both passed down in song hundreds of years before Homer ever wrote them down. Not long ago I heard or read about people in eastern Europe, in part of the old Scythian territory, Romania and Bulgaria, if I remember correctly, that still carry on a tradition of singing epic stories very similar to the Odyssey and Illiad. The scientists who studied these epic songs measured the modern songs with much older versions and found them to be amazingly accurate. I don’t remember the exact numbers but it seemed like the modern songs were in the high 80 percentile or even 90 percentile of preserving songs hundreds of years or even millennia old.

I have also heard of this method being employed by non literate people to remember certain critical routes for journeys or for where to find resources in times of famine or drought. I have a hunch that using words set to music as a tool to remember stories and retain knowledge without writing has been employed by many peoples throughout much of human history and prehistory.

So, I would argue that song lyrics are, in fact, poetry and may have been very important for the practical purpose of preserving knowledge and helping people survive long before poetry was ever an art form, done just for the sake of being pretty.

All that being said, even though I’m not a big poetry fan, I did write a poem and it isn’t set to music. I don’t know why I wrote it. It was like an itch that needed to be scratched and wouldn’t be denied. It is an amalgamation of some of my own personal experiences and stories I have heard from others. It has been a work in progress for many years now and probably still needs some work. But, without further ado, here it is as it exists today:

Painted red by setting sun’s rays

A valley born in ancient days

When glaciers ate through granite stone

Laying bare the mountain’s bones

So begins my harrowing tale

When wandering foot found lonely vale

Where the mountains spoke low and deep

In the roar of streams where waterfalls leaped

As I made my camp a storm did swell

From distant crags where spirits dwell

Grim black clouds, dying light’s doom

And thunder echoed through the gloom

Brilliant slashes ripped the night

And marked the path of Thunderbird’s flight

And all around no place to hide

As lightning stabbed the mountainside

Electric tingle clothed my skin

And banshee’s cry on wailing wind

My hands in futile fists were clenched

As nostrils filled with ozone stench

And on the wings of the howling gale

Slashing rain and driving hail

Trembling there in mortal fright

Witnessed Storm God’s awful might

Fleet images danced in widened eye

Jagged peak and leaden sky

A blinding scene in front of me

Stark lit ridge and shattered tree

And mind filled dark with afterglow

Rock, and ice, and fields of snow

As titans battled, Earth and Air

Dry mouth worded silent prayer

And thunder cracked and rolled and boomed

Resounding through my mountain tomb

And the tempest raged on, an hour and more

From mountaintop to valley floor

What folly brought me to this place?

Shrinking beneath the mountain’s battered face?

I wished I were somewhere else, safe and warm

Not out in the cursed storm

Huddled there, I pleaded and prayed and swore

A minute speck in a cosmic war

I thought my petitions had been in vain

But then the storm began to wane

Tearing winds became soft caress

And thunder rumbled less and less

And less and less the sky was rent

The storm moved on, it’s fury spent

The night grew quiet with tempest gone

And stillness reigned until the dawn

Into me a great weariness crept

And until bright day I soundly slept

A glorious scene when I woke

Mountains shedding cloudy cloak

High ridges above by sun were kissed

Dark trees below, half hidden in mist

Meadows rang with songbird’s chorus

Above the fog drifting through the forest

A hawk overhead, did wheel and soar

And the mountain’s voice in waterfall’s roar

So I left that place and now end my story

With snowcapped peaks bathed in morning’s glory

The End

P.S. I mention spirits in the poem quite frequently. While I am pretty much an agnostic when it comes to spiritual things, I have also noticed that different areas in the mountains have different auras or “vibes” associated with them.

One can put this down to spirits, and I wouldn’t say positively that this is not the case, but one could also seek an explanation that could be understood in the terms of western science. Each different area in the Cascades has its own look. In the drainages of the Sauk, Suiattle, Whitechuck Rivers, Whitechuck Mountain, Mount Pugh and Sloan Peak are three prominent mountains that dominate the landscape in the area outside of the vicinity of Glacier Peak. Further north, the mountains are more of a jumble with few individual mountains besides Mount Baker and Mount Shuksan dominating the landscape. Along the Fraser River, the mountains seem to be quite abrupt, dropping very steeply into the valley floor.

All of this is probably due, in part, to the way the ice moved through these areas during the last ice age as well as the rock that forms these mountains and how competent, or erosion resistant, this rock is. The different forms that mountains and valleys take in different areas might also lead to sound reacting differently in the different areas, giving each one a distinct sound, and thus “vibe” of its own.

I have my favorite areas where I like the “vibes”, the Skagit near Marblemount and the Cascade River and the north side of the Suiattle, as well as the Baker River. I wouldn’t describe the feelings I get from these places as being warm and welcoming, I always feel a sense of peril but I love these places nonetheless.

I have included some photos that capture some dramatic skies and create, at least in my mind, a sense of spirits at work in the mountains.

This is a panorama of some of the previous photos. I don't know how it will appear on different people's browsers or if  you will be able to enlarge it enough to see the fine details.