POEM - The Mountain's Prayer

I do not bow my head in evening’s glow,

Nor clasp my granite hands in soft request.

My prayer is not a transient thing, but slow—

A continent of patience in my breast.

The sky, my stole; the wind, my whispered choir;

The ancient ice, my beads; the stars, my fire.

My litany is carved by glacier’s tongue,

A slow hymn scored on unforgiving slate.

It is the law to which the world is hung—

The balance of the fragile and the great.

I do not ask for sun, or rain, or birth;

I am the prayer itself, sent from the Earth.

The dawn arrives, a penitent in red,

To kiss my brow and seek an old accord.

The silent blessings of my light are shed

On every root and every waking bird.

I offer no reproach for fleeting things,

The brief and frantic beat of insect wings.

The weight of eons is my kindest creed,

A testament of stillness, deeply worn.

From every crack where tenacious life takes seed,

A new amen is silently reborn.

The stubborn pine that grips my fractured side

Recites my psalm of purpose, deep and wide.

I hear the cries that rise from valleys deep,

The human prayers for mercy, strength, or gain.

Their secrets in my stony heart I keep,

And turn their fleeting joy or sharpest pain

Into a lesson etched in stratum stone:

That no soul ever prays, or weeps, alone.

The storm is my great organ’s fierce lament,

A violent and chaotic, holy sound.

The lightning strikes my face, its power spent,

And peace is in the silence that I’ve found.

I accept the blast, the tremor, and the scar,

For they are part of what and who we are.

My benediction is the water’s flow,

That from my frozen veins begins its course,

To feed the thirsty plains that lie below,

A testament to life’s sustaining force.

This is the covenant I hold most true:

To give the world itself, made fresh and new.

I am the altar where the eagle rests,

The sanctuary where the marmot hides.

I hold the universe within my nests,

And turn the planet on my steadfast sides.

My prayer is for the small, the wild, the free—

The right of every living thing to be.

So when the final sunset gilds my snow,

And shadows fill the valleys like a sea,

You’ll feel the deepest truth I’ve come to know

Emanate from the heart of me:

That prayer is not in words that rise and cease,

But in existence, and in lasting peace.

I am the answer and the question, too,

The constant in a world of change and chance.

My granite soul, both ancient and yet new,

Holds every human sorrow and romance.

And in the vault of heaven, cold and clear,

I am the Earth’s own prayer, suspended here.

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Short Summary :

“The Mountain’s Prayer” is a meditative poem that inverts the traditional concept of prayer. It personifies a mountain not as an entity that prays to a higher power, but as the very embodiment of prayer itself—a permanent, silent, and powerful force. The poem explores the mountain’s perspective, depicting its geological processes (glaciers carving slopes, water flowing from its peaks) and the life it supports (eagles, pines, marmots) as components of a grand, ongoing liturgy. Its "prayer" is one of immense patience, balance, and benediction for the world below, offering lessons in resilience, interconnectedness, and the profound peace found in simply enduring. Ultimately, the mountain is presented as both a witness to human struggles and a timeless symbol of the Earth’s own sacred, sustaining spirit.