If I knew mountains If I knew mountains, I would load up my pallet with blue, grey, white, and just a touch of green, grab an oversized canvas and paint a peaceful valley scene. Id make mountains with sweeps of my pallet knife, and because Bob Ross would approve, happy little trees would spring to life. Around one gnarled, peaceful tree would be a path leading to a secret just for me, because it is, after all, my world. This private little path would wind up and around until it reached a narrow pass, rocky ground to represent the straight and narrow path of life with all its pitfalls and strife, fallings, scrapings and starting anew. Yeah, if I knew mountains, thats what Id do. If I knew oceans, I would write a song, a haunting melody that only belongs on the waves at night as the calm breeze blows, a minor chord for ebbings, a major one for flows because the ocean is a metaphor – everything returns, no matter how far it goes. A storm on the horizon would crescendo into a crash as winds grew bold and lightning crashed. The staccato rain would be the beat of a new harmony as the ocean greets the rains cacophony to combine as one and continue traveling. If I knew oceans, thats how Id sing. But I know plains as far as the eye can see, so it is the poets life for me. With a meter forged in wild magic and rich histories, I craft a poem of regal solemnity. For the plains are howling, hungry, and vast, where heroes and great fanged beasts whisper from the past. Rhymed couplets represent pioneers, men and women, who faced their fears to start a life in a strangely beautiful waste, to taste the harvest hard-won from a soil that rarely is kind to anyone. And try as I might I have never found just the right wording for the glory that abounds in those big West Texas sunsets. So yes, Im a poet, and I write of arid plains and dust, and other places may be more beautiful and just. But while oceans may be deep and mountains may be high, us flatlander poets always reach for the sky.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 14:52:11 +0000