{"id":473,"date":"2022-04-19T11:13:11","date_gmt":"2022-04-19T15:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peacotoons.com\/?page_id=473"},"modified":"2022-04-19T13:14:53","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T17:14:53","slug":"the-old-man","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/peacotoons.com\/?page_id=473","title":{"rendered":"The Old Man and the Mountain"},"content":{"rendered":"

No one knows exactly when he emerged<\/span><\/p>\n

from the face of the mountain, <\/span><\/p>\n

created by the same forces, the ice and fire<\/span><\/p>\n

that harnessed the glacier, cracked the living stone<\/span><\/p>\n

and carved the vast valley of his dominion.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Perhaps the old ones looked up<\/span><\/p>\n

and discovered their image in his.  Perhaps,<\/span><\/p>\n

unlike those who came later and called him Old Man,<\/span><\/p>\n

they recognized a woman in that craggy profile,<\/span><\/p>\n

as aging faces can lose the relevancy of gender.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But it is a human thing to hope that the world<\/span><\/p>\n

is not an inhuman place, that sometimes<\/span><\/p>\n

it reflects us back to ourselves, and reassures<\/span><\/p>\n

that we are as intrinsic a part of the aggregate<\/span><\/p>\n

as the waterfall, the moose and bear, the mountain itself.  <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As days became years, then millennia, he presided<\/span><\/p>\n

over deluge and drought, the cycle of forests<\/span><\/p>\n

from green to gold to ash: the cold white world<\/span><\/p>\n

springing over and over into riotous life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Under his gaze tribes and herds rose and fell,<\/span><\/p>\n

as civilization with its noise and dirt and hubris<\/span><\/p>\n

squandered nature\u2019s currency of balance and harmony. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sculptors say the work exists in the unbroken stone,<\/span><\/p>\n

and the artist has only to reveal it.  If that is true<\/span><\/p>\n

he was always there. But eventually the earth <\/span><\/p>\n

claims even mountains and all things pass away.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Old Man now is an image on a stamp, a license plate:<\/span><\/p>\n

a dream of endurance imposed upon a shattered face. <\/span><\/p>\n

— Peaco Todd<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Honorable mention, Poems of NH contest<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

On and Off the Road:<\/b><\/p>\n

Poems of New Hampshire, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Peterborough Poetry Contest<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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