WSCTE

Where Mountains Rise Out of the Sound

Sometimes I see a woman here
Who left her home to settle
Where the mountains rise out of the Sound.

This woman is becoming the Olympic Peninsula.
A hard road pierces the interior.
A steep road, mud and stones.

A single wind uproots a thousand firs.
In one a cat clings through the storm to the uppermost branch.
When the tree blows down, she knows something new about her claws.

On the beach, a gale throws sand like powder.
Scours the weeping bluff above.
Finally the face leans out, groans, and falls.

You stand back then.
Cover your ears.
Wait.

The road inward washes away.
So much water.
So much water.

Mist and moss hang quiet on the west slope.
A new perfume like salt.
She nurses logs.

This is the place for her best stand.

Marcia Blumenthal (Port Townsend)
Copyright ©

 

Commentary:

"The poem came out of my speculation about a person's taking on some of the identity of a new place. I had just read a piece about becoming the place one lived in. That sounded extreme, but then I began to notice how much the images of the Olympic Peninsula related to some of the personal trials I was seeing. One would have to earn such a poem, I thought. I myself certainly hadn't, but I could imagine someone who had. Thus the poem was written about a 'woman'  rather than about myself. Each line's coming to a full stop with a period gives the weight and solemnity I felt was appropriate to the subject. "

"Where Mountains Rise Out of the Sound" was published in The Flying Island.