Mountain Poetry

Emily Dickinson
(1830-1886) Mountain Poetry
Edited by Peter Y. Chou
WisdomPortal.com

Gary Snyder
(born May 8, 1930)

Preface: The poems below on mountains were typed from books in my personal library. No attempts were made to add more poems from Google Search listing 18,600 mountain poetry. Mahdah Payson's poem "To My Mountain" was cited by Galen Rowell in Yosemite & The Wild Sierra. It was originally published in Poetry (September 1916) . Gary Snyder signed his Mountains and Rivers Without End (1996) when he came to a Stanford Colloquium (4-10-2013). I've cited four poems from that book. Surprised that I've written eight poems relating to mountains (1978-2018), which are linked below.

Czechoslovakia 726
(issued 10-27-1955) Bivouac on a Mountain Side

I see before me now, a traveling army halting;
Below, a fertile valley spread, with barns, and the orchards of summer;
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt in places, rising high;
Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes, dingily seen;
The numerous camp-fires scatter'd near and far, some away up on the mountain;
The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized flickering;
And over all, the sky—the sky! far, far out of reach,
studded, breaking out, the eternal stars.
— Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Leaves of Grass (1865)

*****************************************************************************************************

U.S. #1436
8¢ Emily Dickinson
(issued 8-28-1971) Mountain Poems of Emily Dickinson

Poem #666 (1863): "Ah, Teneruffe! / Retreating Mountain!" (p. 331)
Poem #667 (1863): "Bloom upon the Mountain—" (pp. 331-332)
Poem #757 (1863): "The Mountains— grow unnoticed—" (p. 354)
Poem #772 (1863): "At middle of the Hill—" (p. 371)
Poem #975 (1864): "The Mountain sat upon the Plain" (p. 456)
Poem #1278 (1873): "The Mountains stood in Haze—" (p. 558)

Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1976)

*****************************************************************************************************

Spain 2086
50 peseta Antonio Machado
(issued 2-28-1978) Passageways (Stanza 2)

The blue mountain, the river, the firm
coppery twigs on the slender poplars,
and the white of the almond tree on the hill!
Oh snow in the blossom and the butterfly in the tree!
Carrying the aroma of the bean fields, the wind
runs through the joyful solitude of the fields!
— Antonio Machado (1875-1939)
Times Alone: Poems of Antonio Machado (1983)
translated by Robert Bly (page 127)

*****************************************************************************************************

Sweden 2717, 12 krona
Tomas Tranströmer
(issued 11-14-2013) The Black Mountains

At the next bend the bus broke free of the mountain's cold shadow,
turned its nose to the sun and crept roaring upwards.
We were packed in. The dictator's bust was there too,
wrapped in newspaper. A bottle passed from mouth to mouth.
Death, the birthmark, was growing on all of us, quicker on some, slower
on others.
Up in the mountains the blue sea caught up with the sky.
— Tomas Tranströmer (1931-2015)
Tomas Tranströmer: Selected Poems 1954-1986 (1983)
Edited by Robert Hass, translated by Robert Fulton (page 151)

*****************************************************************************************************

Ku San
(1908-1983) Nine Mountains

Take a leap off the top of an 80,000-foot cliff,
And the Ancient Buddhas
Of the past thousand years will smile subtlely.
When one embraces all the mountains and rivers,
The jade plum in the snow
Will exhibit the face of Spring.

— Ku San (1908-1983)
Nine Mountains (1978)
"Winter Meditation Retreat 1976-77" (page 162)

*****************************************************************************************************

Gary Snyder's
Mountains and Rivers
Without End (1996)
Mountains and Rivers Without End

I can't say no: I speak

The Mountain Spirit

Walking on walking
under foot earth turns

Streams and mountains never stay the same.

The Mountain Spirit whispers back:
"All art and song
is sacred to the real.
As such."

— Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930)
Mountains and Rivers Without End (1996)
"The Mountain Spirit" (pp. 140-147)

*****************************************************************************************************

Poetry, September 1916 (p. 295)

"To My Mountain"

O my Mountain, my Mountain—
Enveloped in your cloak of snow,
Can you hear?

Temple of my night,
Cradle of my day,
Can you hear?

I warn you of the braggart of the sky,
The Sun! The Sun!
He outruns my warning words
To steal your snows,
O my Mountain, my Mountain.

Great body-guard of God—
Can you hear!

— Mahdah Payson

cited: Galen Rowell,
"Yosemite & The Wild Sierra"
Sasquatch Books, Seattle, 2004, p. 91

Mountain Poems
by Peter Y. Chou

"Mountains Are Mountains"
(Corseaux, 10-26-1978)

"Blue Heaven, Green Earth"
(Squaw Valley, 7-13-1990)

"Ascension"
(Mountain View, 10-2-2007) Notes

"Mountain of Bliss"
(Mountain View, 4-18-2012) Notes

"What Do You Ride?"
Mountain View, 8-27-2012)

"Road to the Rifted Rock"
(Mountain View, 2-7-2013) Notes

"The Mountains Are Calling"
(Mountain View, 5-19-2014)

"Chinese Ideogram Shan for Mountain"
(Mountain View, 1-22-2018) Notes

Shan, Bird Mountain, Lambda

*****************************************************************************************************

"Near the Mountains"

Near the mountains
footsteps on the ground
sound hollow

as if to remind us
this earth is a drum.

We must watch our steps closely
to play the right tune.

— Joseph Bruchac
Near the Mountain
White Pine Press,
Fredonia, NY, 1987, p. 43

Inspiring poem

by Zen Master Dogen (1200-1253)

Body like a mountain,
Heart like an ocean,
Mind like the sky.

*****************************************************************************************************