Colleen Fielder

Mountains I Remember

I'loved the Kootenays and was content there
midst the towering peaks

sculpted by erosion

knowing even they would be levelled

as all are humbled eventually

Through time such redundance must be spoken
and memories preserved in rocks

fade under a system of weather patterns

so unpredictable that we are amazed it works

The goats know these things
showing it in their stares
Circumspect and vigilant they cruise
over each mountain path

limber and sure as dancers

Later we missed the ocean

maybe because we’d known it longer
wishing for the place where life began
billions of years ago

Still I recall looking down

sensing order even in things

I feared the most

While under the earth’s surface

constant turmoil lurkes

earthquakes and volcanoes

occur in clearly defined paths

and I understood that a matrix of patterns
exists throughout the earth

connecting all that is

Feeling a part of

not separate from

I trusted in those mountains

loving more than I could remember
and fearing less and less

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