The fruited plains and shining mountains (con't)

The Land Between (II)

(This poem is in several parts. It's best to start from the previous post (I) and follow from there. These may not be consecutive as I may post other items in between sections of this offering)

Mountains

And now, the earth’s heart grew bold,

And once, where the mountains old

Stood, in the memory of infinity,

Eroded into plains through eternity.

Excited the marrow once more,

Roughly pushing the molten core.

Soon, shadows of a new range

Lay across the father's plain,

Wreathed in cloudy laurels white,

Proud, yet only half the height.

This great, shimmering wall of granite,

Lay, like a girdle, across the planet.

A thrusting bouldered shinning crest,

Defining the lands east and west.

Now a silence, deeper than creation,

Lay, like a blanket, in isolation.

Seen only by stars, vastly strewn

Beyond the sky and constant moon.

Ice

Wind, howling like the voice of God,

Now slammed against its great facade.

Screaming loud at mountain and plain,

Hurling bullets of icy rain.

It froze the rivers, and steeled the ground.

Omnipotence, in which all were bound

By crystal flows icy blue and miles deep,

Gouging and grinding in a slow, slow, creep

Spreading across the frozen land,

All were powerless to withstand.

Humans cried out their frozen prayer,

Fleeing centuries of despair.

The oceans, fled from this force,

A victim, as well as the source

An icy wall, a thousand miles long,

A sterile force, without life or song.

Then the sun chased the wind,

Snows stopped and the ice thinned,

As the wind released her violent hold

On land, long shivering in deathly cold.

The orb now shifted and turned its face

In search of the sun's far off embrace,

The land warmed by its distant ray

Ten times ten million miles away.

It touched the peaks and bathed the plain,

Where creatures long dormant had lain

In bondage to the ice and snow,

Felt the warmth, and began to grow.

Like the cold, the memory thawed

And living things were over awed

Souls pregnant now with joy and hope,

Prayed life could rule the mountain's slope

And never again be frozen in fear,

Endlessly flourishing, year after year,

Living only in this day and time,

Rejoicing in the minute sublime.