Black Mountains

[Hawkman]

The night is ageing when we wake.
Hauled from our cots within the shack,
we dress in haste to beat the dawn
and counter winter’s chill.
A hurried breakfast fortifies the soul
and then, with fully laden pack,
we set out in the dark.

In staggered teams,
strung out,
snaking upwards,
along steep, narrow tracks
through densely wooded slopes,
ever higher, always climbing,
reaching for the light.

At last, the sky.
We leave the prison of the trees
and catch a glimpse of heaven.

Before our eyes, a perfect liquid mirror.

Flawless in reflection,
tinted rose,
brushed by sun’s first morning ray,
the snowy hills expand,
growing through opposing planes
divided by the shore.

Breathless as the wind,
we pause and marvel at perfection,
and then we leave.
Only memory remains.

[Revolte]

I loved this, I'm incredably tired right now so my imagination is pretty active and this was a blast to picture, and beautifully described.

We leave the prison of the trees
and catch a glimpse of heaven.

loved it.

[PrinceMyshkin]

There's a lovely, seemingly easy flow throughout this, as if it were the exhalation of a long, serene breath. I plan on reading it several more times although I already have a strong sense of the integrity of it.

[hillwalker]

I really like this piece, Hawk. And I know exactly what you mean - been there, seen it, even got the t-shirt.

Nicely done.

H

[blank|verse]

Yeah, nice work, Hawk.

Great opening line (although I prefer 'ageing' with the 'e'!) – and a good line to finish – and the bit in the middle's not bad either!

There's something a bit too chirpy about this line – and you're repeating 'haste' (line 3) – which marks something of a change of tone:

A hasty breakfast fortifies the soul

I'm not sure about 'cot' because of its associations with an infant's bed – and my dictionary tells me a 'cot' is the shack itself, or a cottage, rather than the bed, if that was the sense in which you intended it.

brushed by sun’s first morning ray,

I would keep 'brushed' but change the rest – 'brushed' sounds original; the rest a bit clichéd to be honest.

And I'm sorry to do this – and I might as well apologise to everyone who's work I tinker with in this way, now and in the future! – but I do think it looks a bit messy on the page with all the variously-sized stanzas. Coincidentally (?) it can be made into two 14-line stanzas. The point of doing this in the context of this poem is that you don't want the distractions of jumping between the stanzas – just let it flow and keep the reader reading. Any sudden appearances of new scenes the reader can imagine for him/herself without having to put bits in a separate stanza. The content of the poem describes scenes of natural beauty, so why not reflect this and make the form and shape of the poem aesthetic also?

Overall, it's a good poem and you're on a winning theme. Maybe a bit more in the way of 'writing for the senses' would help – let us really smell the cold, feel the night, hear the footsteps, &c…

The night is aging when we wake.
Hauled from our cots within the shack,
we dress in haste to beat the dawn
and counter winter’s chill.
A hasty breakfast fortifies the soul
and then, with fully laden pack,
we set out in the dark.
In staggered teams,
strung out,
snaking upwards,
along steep, narrow tracks
through densely wooded slopes,
ever higher, always climbing,
reaching for the light.

At last, the sky.
We leave the prison of the trees
and catch a glimpse of heaven.
Before our eyes, a perfect liquid mirror.
Flawless in reflection,
tinted rose, brushed
by sun’s first morning ray,
the snowy hills expand,
growing through opposing planes
divided by the shore.
Breathless as the wind,
we pause and marvel at perfection,
and then we leave.
Only memory remains.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Blank|Verse: I take issue with the re-ordering you suggest. Rather than the flow that you propose, I think that many or all of these new, variously sized stanzas mimic the stop and start nature of the experience:

and then, with fully laden pack,
we set out in the dark.

In staggered teams,
strung out...

for instance, signals a significant movement forward in the experience, and

Before our eyes, a perfect liquid mirror.

deserves the status of a single-line to emphasize the drama, the wonder of that moment, and so on throughout the rest of these stanzas.

[Hawkman]

Thanks Revolte I’m glad you liked it. This is a memory of mine from 30 years ago, (January 1980) and it is still as fresh for me as the day it happened. If you were able to picture it through my poem then I’m well pleased.

My Prince, Thank you for your comments. As I told Revolte It is an experience that lives in my memory. I didn’t take a photograph, it would never have lived up to the memory.

hill, thanks, my friend. You probably walked the same path to the same lake. (or is it a reservoire, lol) I remember a square, castellated building. A pump house, maybe… but to arrive just as the sun touched the snowy hills beneath a clear breathless sky, Made me think of the Mirror Mere from Lord of the Rings.

B/V thank you and especially for your in depth reading. As for repeating haste, hasty. I’m beginning to think I should never post a poem until the day after I’ve written it. I need to write it, leave it, come back to it fresh and then obvious errors will be easily spotted and dealt with before you can find them

As for cots… I don’t know why but I just didn’t want to use ‘bunks’. I think this is because I may have been going to use bunk-house for shack. Beds would have implied a certain degree of comfort, which was certainly lacking!

…sun’s first morning ray… well I did consider,

“…morning in the bowl of night
has flung the stone
that puts the stars to flight.”

or possibly:

“…Rosy fingered dawn
has caught the Sultan’s turret
in a noose of light.”

but I understand they’re taken.

As for your arrangement, well I can see what you are getting at and yes it is a pleasing arrangement. But Prince nailed it when he described how the breaks reflect the different stages of the journey. It’s what I was trying to convey by formatting it as I did.

Anyway, Many thanks for the praise you have given this poem and for the time and effort you devoted to your response.

Thanks again everyone.

Live and be well,

H

[Delta40]

At last, the sky.
We leave the prison of the trees
and catch a glimpse of heaven.



what powerful imagery you have used in this poem, which took me out of my drab little kitchen....thank you!

[MorpheusSandman]

I think most of the praise and criticism has already been well delivered so I find myself with little to add. I find myself siding with Prince on the issue of the structure, btw, though I might consider incorporating something similar to B|V's idea and clean it up just a bit (but I'll leave that to you to think about). What I really like about this is that it DOES feel like a genuine moment from memory, yet you render it with the vividness of the present. So it has a quality of being both wistful and immediate. You also provide with with a delicate but potent forward motion, and the reader feels as if they're always moving towards something. Well done.

[lallison]

Great poem, one I thoroughly enjoyed. You have successfully eeked the meaning out of your adventure, crystallized it in poetry, and shared it. That in itself is an accomplishment almost, but not quite, as great as climbing a mountain. I looked up the Black Mountains and from the pictures, they look beautiful. I hope i get a chance to visit them some day.

I have to take an issue with this stanza:

At last, the sky.
We leave the prison of the trees
and catch a glimpse of heaven.

firstly, (or in American English: first of all), you don't have to climb a mountain to look at the sky, which is implied here. On a clear day you can just look up from your porch. Secondly, trees are not a prison. Living in a concrete jungle, I feel pretty insistent that trees are no prison. and lastly, (i didn't even think "lastly" was a word, but looks like it past the spelling check), glimpse of heaven is a bit trite, something of a cliche' isn't it. So while I understand what you're saying with this stanza, I would rework it and try to think of a better way of saying it.

Other than that, I loved your poem and found it to be both moving and inspirational. A lot of good poetry on site today.

[Hawkman]

D40, Thank you so much and I'm happy to oblige

Thanks Morpheus I'm most gratified that you can relate to the poem and share the moment as I relive it in memory.

lall, Thanks I'm glad you enjoyed it. The Black mountains in Wales are used by the armed forces as an area for endurance & navigational training, which is what we were doing there. A 48 hour forced march and orienteering excersise. Somewhat later than the moment described in the poem we chanced upon an SAS guy, with a 60lb pack and his rifle at the high port, literally running up and down the hills! One of our Sub Lieutenants, who went by the unlikely name of Jim Hawkins (you can imagine the comments, "Ah, Jim lad!") felt prompted to call out, "Well done lad, keep it up!"

The look of withering contempt he recieved for his trouble kept me going all day.

The line you take issue with,

"At last, the sky.
We leave the prison of the trees
and catch a glimpse of heaven."

You seem to have forgotten that we were marching at night, and the trees, mostly conifers as I recall, meant that we had no horizon. We were just surrounded by vertical bars of deeper shadow in the night. Emerging from this, just as the sun was rising and being confronted by the vision of the lake at the moment of sunrise, did feel like a glimpse of heaven, at least for me.

Anyway, thank you all for your comments. Always a pleasure to hear from you.

Best, H.