Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction
Stories and Poems About Mountains
by DouglasIMPORTANT NOTE: This is a piece of a longer writing project. You can view the entire project here: Stories and Poems About Mountains
The following is a piece of writing submitted by Douglas on October 15, 2007
"Now I sort of wish the Mountain writing prompt was this week, because this is what I would submit for it.
This is a freestyle poem describing my day of hiking with a couple friends. We hiked Table Rock, West Baldpate, and Baldpate. It was the most unusual hike I've ever done.
I tried to capture some of that unsualness with just a few words. The poem is in sequence, starting before we even began the hike, and ending when we left the brook that guided us back to the road."
This is a freestyle poem describing my day of hiking with a couple friends. We hiked Table Rock, West Baldpate, and Baldpate. It was the most unusual hike I've ever done.
I tried to capture some of that unsualness with just a few words. The poem is in sequence, starting before we even began the hike, and ending when we left the brook that guided us back to the road."
October Climb
SunriseA chill fall morning:
Lonely stars hiding behind
black, invisible banks of cloud -
disappearing even before the sun's first light.
Fearsome, silent giants,
Rows of monstrous, forbidding sentinels
creatures of granite, lumber, and loam,
dwarfing the grandest works of man.
Wisps of grey mist
obscuring steep granite slopes,
speeding north upon a biting wind.
Plateau
A bare rock.
A sheer drop.
A cold wind.
Below, a winding gray ribbon of highway -
Wending between orange and yellow mountains.
Rocks, harsh and jagged, with serrated edge,
A thousand feet straight down.
The sun, streaming through cloud breaks,
tempts us with unfulfilled hopes -
Hopes of warmth.
Hopes of clear skies.
Ice
Drops of rain, mixed with snow,
crystalized on impact,
forming frosted, brittle shards,
a frozen white coat for evergreens.
Drops of rain, mixed with snow,
crystalized on impact -
a treacherous glaze upon the rocks
melting, flowing, freezing again -
icicles glisten from each boulder's edge.
Nothing
A mountain peak in the clouds.
White - as blinding as the night.
A ghostly silence in a world disappeared.
Cruelty
Harsh.
Cutting.
Sleet.
Biting.
Cruel.
Unprotected faces,
cut and burned by sleet.
Cairns coated with white ice,
molded by the wind and
carved in frigid patterns.
Winter Dreamscape
A field of desperate trees
struggling to survive
half hidden in mists,
sagging with snow and ice.
A world of dreams
Separated from our reality;
we intrude on its strangeness
like sleepwalkers in a land of mystery.
Brook
Whispering, chuckling,
Over rocks, between trees,
Bringing us back to reality.
Giggling, laughing,
Broadening, deepening,
Rolling over blankets of autumn leaves.
Cascading, roaring,
Diving headlong over sheer faces,
Pummeling rocks without mercy.
Flowing, gurgling
Giggling, laughing
Chuckling, whispering
Disappearing.
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