Friday, May 8, 2020

An Ode to the Mountain

What is it about a mountain that so thoroughly ensnares the human imagination? Is it the jagged immensity? The superhuman scale? Or is it the allure of secrets hidden in every fold and crevasse? Perhaps it’s simply the exhibition of nature at its grandest scale. The unmitigated authority of such a colossal body and its total freedom to build, act, and even collapse, in whatever way it pleases. Maybe we just admire the mountain for appearing not only immortal but supremely hardy: donning and shedding mounds of ice like a weekend wardrobe, and letting the severe winds curl around its body like the fingers of a lover. The mountain embodies not only the best, strongest and most admirable of human traits, but piles them to a scale we can never hope to emulate, only admire from a distance….