Tweetspeak Poetry

Mountains and Valleys in Nature: Poetry Prompt

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mountains and valleys promptThe structure and symbolic passages of mountains and valleys in poetry goes back to antiquity. In part, the poet lives by a code of paying attention.

If you trust in Nature, in what is simple in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge.”

—Rainer Maria Rilke

Often, the changing landscape of society has driven the poet to embrace the simplicity of nature, as a stark contrast to the advance of industry and technology. The romantic poets chose to focus on nature in a radical way—communing with its ambience, delighting in its nourishing powers, and branding it sacred. Consider these lines from William Wordsworth’s poem Tinturn Abbey:

Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, — both what they half-create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

Try It: Mountains and Valleys in Nature Poetry

Think of the intricacies of mountains and valleys. Ponder what symbolic or spiritual meaning they hold. Consider their place in Nature, as a connection point between you and Nature. Pay close attention to the details—the things that others miss or ignore. What is awakened in you? Write a poem incorporating this theme and share it with us in the comment section below.

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Featured Poem

Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here is a poem from Donna we enjoyed:

All weather
flows toward
my own heart.

—by Donna Falcone

Photo by Lenny K. Creative Commons via Flickr.


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How to Write a Poem 283 high How to Write a Poem uses images like the buzz, the switch, the wave—from the Billy Collins poem “Introduction to Poetry”—to guide writers into new ways of writing poems. Excellent teaching tool. Anthology and prompts included.

“How to Write a Poem is a classroom must-have.”
—Callie Feyen, English Teacher, Maryland

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Heather Eure
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Comments

  1. Laurie Flanigan says

    Prospects

    Most see the potential of the sun-deflecting crests,
    but the crevices are flayed by minerals and sprays
    that convert the semi-senseless seeds to unexpected emerald.

    Reply

      • Laurie Flanigan says

        Thank you, Donna. I’m happy to see your short but potent poem was included in this post. I love its wonderful sound echo of flows and own.

        Reply

      • Laurie Flanigan says

        Thank you, Heather, for your response and for your inspirational words. I especially enjoyed your opening line and the excerpt you selected from Tinturn Abbey.

        Reply

  2. Laura Brown says

    Assent

    Top-
    most
    in my
    mind’s
    ear now
    is how it felt
    each first time
    I summited. Say,
    Freter’s Hill, for which
    the way up began where
    my street ended. Later, Pinnacle
    in Little Rock. Still later, Cadillac in
    Maine. And also Mount Nebo, Petit
    Jean, mountains whose tops I drove to,
    and even Observatory Hill, where the way
    to the top is paved and easy. There’s something
    about rising above it all, no farther to go, destination
    met. An accomplishment, a satisfaction, and if I’m being
    honest, a shred of something like disappointment too, or
    sorrow. Of course I can recall a view from each of these. But
    I mean it about the mind’s ear, because there was a particular
    sound that is partly the ambient noise of each place in each time,
    especially if the wind was having its way. But there is also a sound
    that is silence, a pressing in when the ground has run out, a something
    that startles into attention, like a teacher who gets her students to hush
    by not raising her volume, but whispering. It is the same sound everywhere,
    yet new and peculiar each time. A thing I have missed, a forgotten phenomenon.
    The lure and allure of it is every bit as strong as Everest is for some. Silence, I give.
    The highest ground in my neighborhood is Summit Street. I’m planning my ascent.

    Reply

      • Donna Falcone says

        Laura, I really enjoyed your ascent! The shape of the poem is cool, even though it didn’t all fit just so in the comment box. I really love poems that have shapes, or that use shape.

        My favorite line: But there is also a sound
        that is silence, a pressing in when the ground has run out, a something
        that startles into attention,

        I know a startling silence – such a good strand of words.

        Reply

  3. Anna Blake Godbout says

    The Wedding Ring Quilt

    This morning, the first snow of spring
    fell like a curtain of lace across the mountains
    spilling leftovers of winter
    down into the stunted pine brushed valley.

    The touch of your smile
    held the warmth of weathered hands;
    eyes of silver and sage glistened
    when I said, “I hope it snows six feet.”

    You gathered our wedding ring quilt
    around the curve of me tighter,

    knowing the soft why of my words.

    Reply

  4. Anna Blake Godbout says

    Revelation

    The pre-dawn light shifts from grey to vanilla;
    threads of early morning weave fog
    around the head of Pikes Peak
    like a ring of horizontal braids.

    Last evening’s snowfall paintbrushes
    a stark masterpiece onto the high summits.
    I watch a mixed flock head south beyond snow sprinkled red rock
    into miles of clear, empty skies.

    I stand in the open door and take in that winter blue
    stretching beyond the edges of my eyesight
    and applaud the stronghold of this place-
    uncaptured and silent,

    which will never be diminished.

    Reply

  5. Anna Blake Godbout says

    A Walk with the Clouds

    Let us walk,
    along the mountain coast
    under clouds light as springtime air.
    There are no cares from pouring rains
    that soak our way.

    Skies of denim blue
    nudged by the sea’s wind
    remind us to leave behind
    heartache and hurdle.

    I take your laughter
    and weave it with mine
    as the sun warms our backs.

    Reply

  6. Rick Maxson says

    Prayer

    The world is immense
    and like a word that is still growing in the silence.
    – Rainer Maria Rilke

    In the East, behind the mountains,
    a tongue of light is moving
    like a word in the silent morning.

    We watch the prairie flowers take form
    in the empty sound,
    the colors of intention,
    among the bent and swaying grasses.

    In brightening wind, the kestrel circles,
    we know this to be
    what binds the earth and sky.

    A fox on a sketch of road barks.
    The hawk declares itself.
    On a bicycle, a man passes us singing.

    Who speaks for all in this motley choir—
    Where is the high and guiding drumfire?

    From within their ravaged beauty, the cities
    seek a prayer for the clusters of silent sorrow.

    In the face of a gray frieze, a kestrel flees its nest.
    The carillons ring.

    A frail cry rises
    over the cultured trees and mountain peaks,
    curves against the shirt of space,
    the waveform of voices
    under voices, the audacious and the lost,
    the litany and the listening.

    Reply

  7. Katie says

    Oh mercy – I want to save all these!
    Just outstanding: Donna, Laurie, Laura, Anna, Rick!
    When I read poems like these I get rejuvenated and eager to write more:)
    Also, it sends me surfing around for hours reading Rilke, Wordsworth, and the like.

    Reply

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