Hello poets!   I am pleased to present our guest prompter, Lynn, who blogs at “A Poem in my Pocket”.

An American anthem, written at the summit of Pike’s Peak (CO) sings, “ O, beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain; for purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain.”
For some settlers and miners, it was “Pike’s Peak or Bust!”

I have lived on the grained plain for over half my life, but my roots reach back to mountain majesties. I was raised in that same Rocky Mountain state where one could drive to vistas, fish lakes, hike trails, pack picnics, ski slopes, and camp at high altitudes.

Many well-known peaks have been the focus of exploration and epic stories, including: Mount Everest, Denali, Fuji, Kilimanjaro, The Matterhorn, Aconcagua, St. Helen, Olympus, Vesuvius, Ararat and Mount Zion. The classic theme from The Sound of Music (The hills are alive…) and featured solo “Climb Every Mountain”, are set in the beautiful Austrian Alps.

Eastlyn Bright Tolle of Juneau, Alaska, features some stunning mountain photography on her website: www.eastlynbright.com and blog: https://www.instagram.com/eastlyn_/

(photo taken from summit of Mt. Roberts, Alaska credit: Eastlyn Bright Tolle)

In her poem, “Ah, Teneriffe”, Emily Dickinson was impressed by a mighty mountain in the Canary Islands:

Ah, Teneriffe!
Retreating Mountain!
Purples of Ages —pause for you —
Sunset — reviews her Sapphire Regiment —
Day — drops you her Red Adieu!
Still — Clad in your Mail of ices —
Thigh of Granite —and thew— of Steel—
Heedless — alike— of pomp — or parting
Ah, Teneriffe!
I’m kneeling —still—

or consider the quieter presence of this unnamed mountain by Chinese poet, Li Po:

All the birds have flown up and gone;
A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.
We never tire of looking at each other –
Only the mountain and I.

Today, I encourage you to raise your poetic eyes toward the summit and write on a rather broad and lofty theme of mountains, as experienced solidly or metaphorically. Your muse may choose to focus on a specific peak or span an entire range. Perhaps someone you know is facing or has conquered a personal mountain (might be yourself!).

Maybe the result is magnificent or perhaps we must “make a mountain out of a molehill”. Though not all poems achieve the summit, however far we climb, the view is worth it! We look forward to your participation. Grab your writer’s backpack and a walking stick, gulp in the thin alpine air and breathe out your poetry!
Hope to see you all out in the trail.

If you’re new to dVerse, this is how to participate:
▪ Write a poem and post it to your site/blog.
▪ Enter a link to your poem and your name by clicking Mr Linky below.
▪ If you are promoting your work on social media, use the tag #dversepoets.
▪ Lastly, please visit others at their links and read their work.

Thank you all. Have fun!

bio notes: Lynn is a lover of words and the Word. She also loves a hard-working Iowa farmer, five strong sons, three dear daughters (by marriage), and four rambunctious grandchildren She’s an educator who has learned a lot from homeschooling boys, oy! Lynn’s poetry has appeared in local newspaper and “Lyrical Iowa” anthology. She blogs “A Poem in my Pocket” at madhatterpoetry.com