Open Secret

Open Secret - Denise Levertov

Perhaps one day I shall let myself

approach the mountain –

hear the streams which must flow down it,

lie in a flowering meadow, even

touch my hand to the snow.

Perhaps not. I have no longing to do so.

I have visited other mountain heights.

This one is not, I think, to be known

by close scrutiny, by touch of foot or hand

or entire outstretched body; not by any

familiarity of behavior, any acquaintance

with its geology or the scarring roads

humans have carved in its flanks.

This mountain’s power

lies in the open secret of its remote

apparition, silvery low-relief

coming and going moonlike at the horizon,

always loftier, lonelier, than I ever remember.

Notes:

No, you're wrong, Denise Levertov! That mountain is to be "known by close scrutiny"! I have known that mountain by "familiarity of behavior". I have known it "by touch of foot or hand", and especially "entire outstretched body"! I have "touch[ed] my hand to the snow", and there was a time when I wandered those "flowering meadows" daily. I have lied beneath its stars countless times and have known its massive silhouette in the darkness. I have dug my toes into its sand, and immersed myself in its lakes. I have its mud still on my boots, and its fir needles in my socks...

You may laugh at my sentimental nostalgia, but I will not stop loving that mountain. Many of you know as well as I do, that mountain is magnetic. It has gotten under my skin, and there it will stay. And I sincerely hope that you will one day let yourself "approach the mountain", and understand, if only a little, the hold that it has over me.