Long Mountain Hermit

The first thing you will notice
About Long Mountain is that,
Although it is frightening

With its sheer, black basalt cliffs—
Frightening, imposing, stern,
And improbably jagged,

As well as absurdly steep,
At least from foreshortened views
Craning your neck at the base—

It’s actually not that long.
It’s just alarmingly huge,
Volcanic-looking, burly,

Throwing gnomonic shadows
On the surrounding landscape,
With a peak of broken cone

Like an unrepaired molar
Where Earth tried to bite Heaven
And got a mouthful of ice.

Your logical assumption,
Then, is that its current name
Honors someone surnamed “Long,”

But that would also be wrong.
Long refers only to time
On this mountain, not to space.

One of the problems with time
(Time has so many problems)
Is that you can only think

Or speak of it using terms
Apparently invented
Originally for space.

(You can also describe time
Mathematically, but
It drops from the equations.)

Long Mountain is rich with time,
So rich you’ll find fantasies
Vanish as you climb, and views

Vary so implausibly
You’ll surrender perspective.
Above all else, Long Mountain

Changes you. It’s most famous
Not for heroic climbers
But for climbers’ tendency

To dawdle until they lose
All their supplies, or their way
Up their chosen route, or down,

Or their lives, whether or not
They actually summitted,
Whether or not they still care.

If you go up Long Mountain,
Expect to take a long time
And to return with white hair

Or not to return at all.
I’m sending you this message
To post at all the trailheads.

I’ve been up here all these years,
And I like it more than you.
I’m not turning you away—

But I won’t feed or rescue you,
And I might vanish into mist.
I suggest you consider this.