My mother tongue is a mountain song
Peaks rising like sharp consonants
Like a match catching on the side of its box.
Valleys like vowels, the absence of sound left
Like a glacier leaves its mark in the land as it recedes.
The wind sings around these peaks in a way
I always wished I could.
Something primordial caught in my vocal cords,
That still believes
I could produce a sound so wild.
I have seen castles and ancient walls,
Fields of lavender and golden wheat,
The great beauty of the world — but still,
None can exceed my home in its splendour.
Whether it’s the scree left behind by an avalanche,
Or the pale starbursts of wild roses that grow along the trail’s edge
The harsh greyscale of the mountains is beyond compare.
The air at sea-level is oppressive
Hanging around my head like a flock of seabirds
Too heavy, too heady, too hot.
I breathe better a few thousand feet up,
Where every breath feels like inhaling ice.
No place could feel as protective — as contained —
As the valleys of the Rockies, where the masses of blue and grey
Rise around me so high that all I can see is stone and snow.
Being in the mountains does something unspeakable to me.
I am made wild among those peaks.
I am made among these peaks.
To be in the mountains is to be in my mother’s arms.