Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!
For this session we read a poem “The Mountains” by D’Arcy McNickle, posted below.
Our prompt was: โWrite about what is seen in the half-night.โ
More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
Please join us for our next session Friday December 15th at 12pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.
"The Mountains" by D'Arcy McNickle
There is snow, nowโ
A thing of silent creepingโ
And day is strange half-night . . .
And the mountains have gone, softly murmuring something . . .
And I remember pale days,
Pale as the half-night . . . and as strange and sad.
I remember times in this room
When but to glance thru an opened window
Was to be filled with an ageless crying wonder:
The grand slope of the meadows,
The green rising of the hills,
And then far-away slumbering mountainsโ
Dark, fearful, oldโ
Older than old, rusted, crumbling rock,
Those mountains . . .
But sometimes came a strange thing
And theirs was the youth of a cloudlet flying,
Sunwise, flashing . . .
And such is the wisdom of the mountains!
Knowing it nothing to be old,
And nothing to be young!
There is snow, nowโ
A silent creeping . . .
And I have walked into the mountains,
Into canyons that gave back my laughter,
And the lover-girlโs laughter . . .
And at dark,
When our skin twinged to the night-wind,
Built us a great marvelous fire
And sat in quiet,
Carefully sipping at scorching coffee . . .
But when a coyote gave to the night
A wail of all the bleeding sorrow,
All the dismal, grey-eyed pain
That those slumbering mountains had ever knownโ
Crept close to each other
And close to the fireโ
Listeningโ
Then hastily doused the fire
And fled (giving many excuses)
With tightly-clasping hands.
Snow, snow, snowโ
A thing of silent creeping
And once,
On a night of screaming chill,
I went to climb a mountainโs cold, cold body
With a boy whose eyes had the ancient look of the mountains,
And whose heart the swinging dance of a laughter-child . . .
Our thighs ached
And lungs were fired with frost and heaving breathโ
The long, long slopeโ
A wind mad and raging . . .
Thenโthe top!
There should have been . . . something . . .
But there was silence, onlyโ
Quiet after the windโs frenzy,
Quiet after all frenzyโ
And more mountains,
Endlessly into the night . . .
And such is the wisdom of mountains!
Knowing how great is silence,
How nothing is greater than silence!
And so they are gone, now,
And they murmured something as they wentโ
Something in the strange half-night . . .
Credit: DโArcy McNickle. poets.org
Connections in Narrative Medicine 