When our children started coming along, some of them turned into desert rats and loved the red rock and sand not far away from my mountains. In my opinion of course the sandy desert with its 100 degree heat could not compete with the green, cool mountains.
I and our family and friends have hiked, camped, fished, hunted and in later years just enjoyed our cabin that was built in a grove of aspen trees on the mountain not far from the little town I was born in.
One morning about 15 years ago, while sitting on a rock overlooking a lake near our cabin I jotted these notes on a piece of paper.
My Mountain
This is my mountain. Of course I don’t own it!
As the Indians say, “You
can’t own a mountain. It belongs to God.”
He made it in all its glory, from the pines
to the grassy sod.It is majestic, this mountain of mine.
It has been here since the beginning of time.
On my mountain I have hiked, I have camped and I’ve played,
It was never a place to become afraid.
From the time I was young, then a teen and now 67
I know on my mountain that I am closer to Heaven.
Many people drive by this mountain of mine,
But they never stop and take any time
To look at the trees, the lakes and the stream,
The paintbrush, daisies and all flowers that beam.
The colors are numerous, if people would just look.
You could never find sights like this in a book.
Of Greens there are many, light quakies, dark pines.
Flowers of blue, red, and white and pink so sublime.
The sky is a blue that is hard to describe.
It is a beauty that would never be captured by a scribe.
My mountain is a place for deer and elk to play.
The beaver builds dams and a coyote has his say.
A snaggled old pine juts from the valley floor.
An Eagle sits on a branch his domain to explore.
He jumps skyward and his majestic wings do extend.
He glides on an updraft, his wings hardly bend.
I watch as a doe crosses a clearing in trees,
With two fawns behind, in grass to their knees.
These deer show no fear as they start down a decline.
They seem to know this mountain is theirs, and it’s mine.
The wind gently rustles the grass, with tops full of seed.
They sway back and forth waiting for animals to feed.
This mountain of mine is not always serene I fear.
This mountain that is home to wild cats and to deer.
In the winter it may become a frightening place to be.
The snows come so gently, one flake, then two and even three
And they keep on coming to the depth of a large tree.
The snow becomes deep and the wind blows it about,
It is no place to get lost. No one could ever hear you shout.
The leaves have all fallen, and the animals did go
To holes in the ground, or the valley below.
New scenes on my mountain now change and come alive
And you see God’s pictures that belittle “Currier and Ives.”
Some people say in winter, my mountain is bleak
But the snows soon melt from all but the highest peak.
Then God causes his miracle of spring to appear
Then all over oven my mountain life starts to appear.
This mountain of mine is a wondrous place.
In spring the floor is covered with Queen Ann’s Lace.
There are also daisies, white, purple and gold
And they stay here all summer until it gets cold.
This mountain of mine in spring comes to life
With plants, and water, and all sorts of wildlife.
Everything is growing and is running around.
The gophers all “pop” from their holes in the ground.
The springs, they start flowing and rivers they rush,
To get off the mountain through trees and through brush.
Then everything starts over on this mountain of mine,
Just as it has forever since the beginning of time.
Wallace R. Baldwin
7 Aug 1999
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