Wednesday, February 09, 2022

Poem for Wednesday and Carderock Scenery

Night on the Mountain
By George Sterling

The fog has risen from the sea and crowned
The dark, untrodden summits of the coast,
Where roams a voice, in canyons uttermost,
From midnight waters vibrant and profound.
High on each granite altar dies the sound,
Deep as the trampling of an armored host,
Lone as the lamentation of a ghost,
Sad as the diapason of the drowned.

The mountain seems no more a soulless thing,
But rather as a shape of ancient fear,
In darkness and the winds of Chaos born
Amid the lordless heavens’ thundering–
A Presence crouched, enormous and austere,
Before whose feet the mighty waters mourn.

-------- 

Watching Shaun White struggle late night after taking a break from the Olympics to watch Torn on Disney+, the documentary by Alex Lowe's son Max about his father's death in an avalanche and his mother's remarriage to his father's best friend, climber Conrad Anker. I knew all these names from my days reading people like Messner and Krakauer, but I didn't think I had an emotional investment in this story and was so impressed by how moving the film is -- reminded me of Ridgeway's Below Another Sky, in which the teenage daughter of the author's best friend asks him to take her to the spot where her father died after a similar avalanche. 

My day otherwise involved Oscar nominations -- meh, happy about Kristen Stewart and Denzel Washington, rooting for West Side Story in most categories without even having seen it, but I didn't think The Power of the Dog was all that great apart from the performances, and I'm nauseous that Don't Look Up got major nominations -- and enjoying the beautiful weather, which was much warmer than last week, bringing out many pesky squirrels on bird feeders. My Voyager group watched the much-despised "Unity" and enjoyed each other's company, at least! Some of the animals and scenery we saw around icy Carderock last weekend: 

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