Because you asked for it...

This is a concrete poem. I wrote it while my dad was in the hospital back in 1999. I was at my Aunt Truth's house sitting cross legged on the leather couch with a view of her kitchen with it's many chickens tucked into  nooks and crannies. I was, once again, struck by the beauty of my past. Not everything was "bad" then. That's the irony of the past, it's both good and bad in the most awkward of times. I remember seeing this mountain on trips to Anchorage with Mom and Joe. Depending on the time of year we would either be counting moose or rabbits on our way there. At school, I heard a legend about this mountain and it never left me. What a beautiful thing to see on your way to town.

Here she is:

Thank you to www.zenithair.com for the photo

Here is my poem:

1999

In the Matanuska valley near Anchorage, Alaska, lays a mountain that resembles a woman’s shape. Many legends have been made about how she, who’s true name is Mt. Susitna, came to be… and she is called:

Sleeping Lady Mountain

   White

    crystalline

   sprinkled in

  blue stone for-

ms your shapely

frame-a profile

 seen for eons-

    hair running

        like an

   angry ocean in

mid-thought-cooled

       to the touch- while

      you lay- daisies leave

yellow marks on your

    cheeks ,purple-

      green-fuchsia

       flowers

       adorn

     your curves

 as a sharp horn-

ed moose travels

 through your bo-

  som, a golden

   brown bear awa-

    kens in your

      navel- until

       the brisk

      white shawl

    shelters you

     again from

     Winter’s

     stinging

     presence-

    my eyes

    tingle at

   the bright-

     ness of

     your pow-

    der overlay- I

    can’t look away.