Prayer to the Mountain

You don't need to be prayed to
I pray to you for me
I pray to your strength, courage,
and steadfast love
I pray to your beauty
and boundless surprises

As for your wisdom, I am humbled
And too, by the changes,
always rolling with the punches
I honor you, oh mountain,
full of life and death,
container of my dreams
Oh beacon, I will follow your way!
Through valleys and peaks and streams,
I vow to follow your way

From The American Poet

"Who troubles himself about his ornaments or fluency is lost. This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body..." Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855