The True Mountain

The True Mountain / Joshua Alan Sturgill

You have never climbed a mountain.
A mountain stands forever
without base, without summit,
sides sheer as crystal.

Perhaps, you mistook for a mountain
a piece of rising, wrinkled earth?
Perhaps you climbed one of the shadows
true mountains cast behind them

— tall, sea-wide shadows falling
from the bright council
where mountains stand eternally
in the thought of God? If you wish

to climb a true Mountain,
to reach the Hour before your hour,
prepare yourself for a consummate
breaking: invisible valleys, lies, dragons

are waiting within you. Consider, too,
those mountain-images you’ve known
and expect an exhaustion far beyond
simply climbing shadows