The Secret Life of Irish Gumbo

Here is a little nugget, extricated from the digital safe where I keep some of my experiments. This is a poem. Yes, a POEM, you wanna do something about? Huh, tough guy? BRING IT.

That's what I thought. Among the many things of interest one can find in a bowl of gumbo, I like the occasional foray into something different and outside of my normal experience. I wrote this for a friend of mine, a sweet person who was going through a rough patch. I channeled this one day at work. Hope you like it. Ahem:

MOTHER MOUNTAIN

Child awoke suddenly and
Swimming from deep in a dream
Trembling to match the leaves overhead
The trees swaying but not from wind

Silence fallen like a cloud
To her ears, unnatural, unknown
Because the mountain was never quiet
In all her time on its greeny slopes

Shadows wheel as Child, dizzy from
Deep within the Earth calls out:
Are you there? An urgent voice replies:
Child, come to me

Leaping as the deer along paths
Green and worn from her travels
Child bursts into sunlight
Where once was shady glen

A rent in the earth, edges raw umber but
Fresh green tendrils banding the face
Molten tears stain the dust, the voice:
Not long may I reach the sky

Faraway sea seems higher on her flanks
As Child implores the mountain:
A quake unknown that woke me
From my slowly passing dream?

From the high peak, a weary reply like
Wind before the avalanche:
Child, it happened years ago
But you were safe and sleeping

Child looks up with a fearing heart
Knowing the mountain is wounded:
But this will pass, there are new leaves
The cut cannot be so deep!

A loving voice from granite deep
As mountain soothes the trembling fawn:
This cut may pass, yet others may not,
And even the wise grow weary

This mountain will return to the sea someday
And you may walk the shore in fond sadness
But remember, Child, the stone that is me
Shall be in your heart forever

Whew! I have no idea where that really came from. I don't even know if it is truly good poetry. It sure did feel good to write it all down. So, where is your Mother Mountain?