Sermon on the Mount

Up in the mountains

Where the honey runs sweet

The Glen is heather lined like rows of springy seats

Feathers of an Eagle are found on a rocky crag

Pine trees sway in the breeze

As if a billowing flag

Up on the rocky paths of stone

Where the carrion crow hop

And pick apart the rabbit bone

Or a sheep’s eye goes pop

Where the temperature freezes

In the spring breezes

And an April shower shows in snow

That a fool may be locked in an ivory tower

With a Raven or a crow

What do you want to know of Mountains?

And why do you ask?

We stand as old as Moses

Mountain Ash grew his staff

Dwarf willow were is companions

The eye bright shone his way

Tormentil cured his stomach aches

And his food improved by bay

He clambered like a picking monk

Choosing herb and flower

The mountain ringlet butterfly

Bought him rings of flight

Through sun’s power

He danced among the butterwort

And down a cooling den

A mountain buttress had over shadowed

As a church may do a garden

He found between the cloven feature

A wriggling running rill

Giving rise to heath bedstraw, Ladies mantle

Celandine and daffodil

Everlasting were the purple flowers

Geranium in lush tussocks

Damp and wet the spongy peat

Facing out with Carex

These were rain mountains

The sky did shower with her gifts

These were old Gods now forgotten

But for the passing swifts

To these Moses walked in sandals

To these vigils made by Pilgrim candles

From these now we turn our head

As the living do from the dead

And yet these Gods yet survive

Holding Oberon fairy lives

Like Ransomed kings

From Widowed wives

They bleed their suffering waters baptised

From these Gods we draw our Nourishment

 River’s swell and Glen’s green Blandishment

Even now electric bulbs and bells

Are powered by their hydro wells

We call it ‘green’, call it man’s invention

But it is just the Mountain God’s intention

To keep his children well with water

As the fatherland set free the river daughter

And we drink and think with laughter

How well this Mountain does us look after

Facing North

The Cliffs of the Tower ring their bells

With Starwort Saxifrage

And Alpine Speedwells

The walls of the castle are highest with might

And the route by the ledge is demanding of plight

This fortress mountain in a blanket of Snow

Becomes a strange moonscape only intimate confidents know

And flourishing well down to their roots

Are the wood rushes and sedges, grown where the burn fills your boots

Little dwarves, little gems on a Rhinoceros hide

 Like some marvellous adornment to a most ugly bride

Yet the clouds are her veil

And when they sometime move aside

They reveal like a sail

Her soft and delicate side

But, then, her Majesty in Cathedral like organs

Are played by the wind demons

Who move beneath her brogans

These smooth Ballein features

Like slippers worn smooth

That lie like sea creatures

So still that never move

Her buttresses are ear-marked

With climbers rings

Yet even these tracks well harkened

Have not been fully listening

The sheer imagination that gave rise to the plan

Is pure intimation of what He will do, He can

His design shows such majesty it is beyond mortal words

No mind can comprehend though they visit in hoards

Just to be among greatness, to walk on its mile

To feel the rock of ages, cracked in a frozen smile

To let the Mountain know

That it is worshipped in homage

Come wind, rain or snow

They will seek out rare saxifrage