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Poems of the Massanutten
By Lisa Jain Thompson
Copyright October 2006
1.
The Poet Has No Clothes
Standing Naked on the deck
--Half moon shining down
Through the sheltering trees,
Shadowing my breasts on the wall --
The rustled breeze teases my nipples,
Shivers my body,
As the valley light so far below
--Eyes, caverns, and the Wal-Mart --
Shimmers across the Shenandoah.
2.
Shenandoah Morning
Morning,
Sun below the mountain peaks,
Low mist across the valley,
I wake to the first rays
Slipping through the gaps.
Dark ancient earth
Rounded down by time
Refuses to bend a knee
To either rain or solar fire,
Resisting the inevitable
Since before we began,
Staying long after our party
Has evolved into historical footnotes
And yellow bussed class trips.
3.
Destiny
What would Caesar have made of this,
The rich valleys, the green mountain peaks?
Would he have settled beside his troops,
A new world too fertile to resist?
An Italian palacio along the Shenandoah,
Olive trees and grapes beside the maize,
Water rushing to drive Caesar's mill
While Calpurnia stays beyond reproach in her kitchen.
Children laugh up and down the farmland,
Heirs and happiness finally reached,
Destiny unknifed, glory defined
By the grandchildren gathered on mid-summer's eve.
4.
Patrol
At night
The helicopters shuttle forth and back,
Patrolling the ICBMs at Front Royal;
If war breaks out, the Shenandoah is gone,
Lost to a moment's hubris
After millions of years of beauty.
At least there's no chance
We'll outlive these ancient walls of granite.
5.
Poem with an Image Problem
The sky is dark as warm manure
Hanging heavy on the night,
Panthers walk the forest's edge,
Lurking just out of sight.
Wolf dog patrols the perimeter,
Safeguarding our upstairs bed.
Fireplace warms the A-frame
High above the river's bed.
6.
Screaming
There is movement all around,
Sometimes a breeze,
Sometimes a bird,
Sometimes a leaf falling from a tree.
A snap of branch in the distance
-- A deer, perhaps, leaving the skat
We will find in the morning --
A loud chatter of bird sound
Calling out across hard won territory,
Water rushing down the hollow
From somewhere up the mountain.
In moments of quiet
The world moves
And the poet with it,
Alive with being.
7.
Audubon Interlude
Woodpecker distantly knocking
Thump Thump
Thump Thump
Breeze winding through the trees
Thump Thump
Thump Thump
Slow jazz afternoon
Vamping until done
Thump Thump
8.
Mountain Top
Bird screaming outside my window,
Chattering loudly at the sunset,
Blue clouds settling over blue mountains
Dark against the dimming sky,
City lights deep in the valley,
One by one coming on,
Dog barking down the gulley,
Barely audible in the mix,
Dinah Washington
Drifting in the background
As daylight vanishes star by star
9.
Reflections
Morning again,
Light clouds stretched lazily
Over hazy blue mountains.
Deep tulle fog
Snaking through the lowland,
Covering farms and riverbanks;
Trees on the high ground,
Drifting above the snowy blanket.
Bright glaring reflection,
Dense clouds to rising sun,
Routs the autumn mists by the hour.
Grey squirrel arriving on red A-frame railing,
Twently feet above safe cover,
Pauses to note the poet
Watching the morning unwind,
Then dashes back to safety
Disappointed at her meager food source.
10.
Atop the World
Most ancient of mountains
Worn away to its granite base,
A most sacred retreat to build a cabin
High up in the Massanutten,
Overlooking the valley,
Eye to eye with the Blue Ridge.
The mountain was here
Before man was born,
The mountain will be here
Long after I am gone:
Treat her with respect
Appropriate our elder.
If the gods reside anywhere,
They are here,
Atop this ancient mountain
Since the beginning of the world;
If not here,
They do not exist.
11.
In the Face of Eternity
If god were to smite us all dead,
What a waste of this beauty.
Would be he jealous of nature's grandeur
Threatening his own spiteful majesty?
He's on record in his book asking mankind
Not to have any other gods before him
-- Not that I've seen him or any others
But I have seen the Shenandoah from the Massanutten,
The red sun rise over the mist hung Blue Ridge;
Woken to raucous shouts of the many birds
That greet each new morning;
Listen to the waters rush down the hollow
To the river far below;
Watched for dear and the track of red wolf,
Finding only their traces and their footprints;
Searched for the great cat that lurks
Somewhere in these mountains;
Bowed my head as eagles flew
High in the heavens' crystal sky;
Cried as I wrote these words,
Knowing some day I would be gone
But now I am alive.
12.
The Mountain
Even the great sequoia,
Who have outlived Jesus,
Bow before the Massenutten,
Only the sun and the planet itself
Have any hope of being older:
This worn down mountain
Once dwarfed the Himalaya,
Rivaled Mons Olympus
For solar majesty.
Time has tested this granite fortress,
Washing the great peaks
With millennia's slow fury
Until her fragments give eye witness
To earth's deep time
And the inevitable movement of the universe
Towards the final disorder
That will swallow us all.
13.
The World is Forest
If a leaf falls in the forest,
But I do not hear it,
Did I see the leaf fall?
If the universe has a beginning and an end,
But I am not around observing the goings on,
Are my questions made without purpose?
If I cannot prove the time before me,
Or confirm what happends after my death,
Is my precious moment any less meaningful?
If the earth spins and the sun seems to rise,
But the stars seem to far for me to visit,
Does it mean my children will not make it so?
I was once a three foot primate
Walking the forest and savanna;
I am now a five foot something woman
Writing in the sunlight on the Massenutten;
Who should say where I will be tomorrow?
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Peace
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© Lisa Jain Thompson 2006
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