Mount Rainier

It doesn't take your breath away,

seeing the massive volcano-mountain,
which you think you're used to seeing
if you live here. Slate blue hide
slathered in creamy snow year-round.

A cone of stone dwarfing plain
and mountain range. Yes, a geologic
giant that rose from explosion, has
exploded, and will blow up again.

Seeing it makes you slow your breath--
you, who needs to breathe each moment.
The mountain breathes in millennia.
On its schedule, you're nothing. A

farmer in a valley near the mountain
told me his family was digging a well
in the silt-and-lava soil and hit the tops
of ancient fir trees the mountain
had obliterated with spewed lava.

Maybe you ride by the mountain
on a bus rolling on a highway.
There it is, casually surreal, just
too damned big. You're nothing
looking at something.

hans ostrom 2023

Poetry Mountain

Mountains of poems, peaks
like Killimanjaro and Rainier.
To one of them a poet
brought a poem. "Here you go,"
she said. (She'd hiked to the top.)
A poetry-mountain attendant
said, "Thanks! Without poets,
there would be no poetry mountains."

He tossed the poem on the heap
and took a smoke-break.
Something then to do with
poetry-mountain physics
kicked in.  An avalanche.

The poet rode it all the way
down, where parts of the poetry
wreckage clotted cafes, open
mic venues, and other spaces.
Several famous poets awoke
to wads of words in their
mouths. They coughed and got
fussy like babies. The search

is still on for many missing
critics, last seen disappearing
under the crust of the mass.
The poet, she posted
an adequate apology online.


hans ostrom 2016