My mountain, Govardhana Hill, looks like Shri Krishna whom you can see only with love and devotion, even if blind.

I am a mountain in Spring. I am tall, I am jagged with crevices filled with the glory of spring bouquets and trees displaying their newborn greenery.

I am a mountain in Summer. I am alive with the heartbeat of hikers climbing my body. I am the home for numerous wildlife. Birds learn to fly in my bosom.

I am a mountain in Fall. I burst with the colors of wildfire. Brillant oranges, yellows and reds.

I am a mountain in Winter. Bathed in my blanket of white I sleep with only the quiet rustle of humans on skies whispering in my ears. Bears lie silent in my arms awaiting the birth of spring.

For whatever season, I am a mountain. I stand strong. I have stood as a silent sentry for centuries. I will stand forever or for as long as there is the passing of season. I will stand and wait for them to pass.

The mountain is taller than walking more flights of stairs than you have ever or will ever walk. It is the color of a cool, metal door or the smell of cut grass. The summit may be jagged and sharp like a cut piece of glass if it is young, or rounded and soft like an egg standing on end as it grows older. It appears from a distance to be smooth and whole... the feel of a bunch of broccoli, but on closer inspection has many hidden secrets.

A mountain is a rock large enough to climb on. Low down on its slopes, where the incline begins to steepen, it is covered in dirt and grass and trees--it smells like a forest. Some mountains are dry and there isn't enough soil to support much life. Instead, there are trees growing from cracks in the rock, and little rocks that have broken off the mass of mountain scattered at its feet. Walking on them is like walking on sand, but larger--hard to balance and the rocks slide and roll across one another. But let's go with an alpine mountain, lofting out of the sweetness of grazing meadows, redolent with clover and wildflowers. As you climb through the forest, the trees start to thin out. You can feel the sun in larger patches across your face, and the wind reaches you between the trees. When you have climbed high enough, over rough ground (sometimes stooping to use your hands to steady yourself over large boulders), the forest will be gone. If you feel the rocks here, you will find spongy mosses and scaly lichens, and a few straggly grasses and wildflowers. The air will smell so clean and fresh you feel you could live on it. Keep climbing. The air starts to get colder and it's harder to breathe. Your feet start to crunch on the ground and if you crouch down and place your hands on it you will find you have walked into winter. The snow is crunchy and hard, like little pebbles, and packs easily. As you climb, your feet sinking further and further into the snow, you will feel beads of moisture forming on your eyelashes and dripping from the ends of your hair. Sounds will be amplified and muffled at the same time. People right next to you will sound like they are a mile away, and the footsteps of hikers down the path from you will sound as loud as thunder. From here the way grows even steeper, and the rock is hard and sharp, with cracks that run vertically--you can get your fingers into some of them, but there is nothing growing there. To procede would require oxygen tanks and ropes and spikes on your boots to keep you anchored to the ground. If you got to the top, you would feel the air spilling over the top of the mountain, moving around you like a living thing, with force enough to catch you if you fell (but not for long). It smells clean and pure--every odor of living absent: no flowers, trees, earth, animals, humans, smog, metal, but there is no substance to it. Without the oxygen, you could breathe in long and deep and still feel like you were holding your breath. The cold would crackle in your nostrils, freezing the moisture in your breath into icicles clinging to every little hair. Under your feet the snow is light and dry and trickles through your fingers like sand, but if you stamp your cleated boot into the snow, you will find hard packed ice beneath--almost as hard and cold as the mountain rock itself. To get this high, you will have climbed for several days.

You're welcome, you're welcome. I had fun trying to use all the senses except sight to create my "picture".

Rock in man's hand
mass, edge, permanent
Man becomes earth
rock is mountain


- panther