To the Mountains - Eve Girzadas

In altitude, I awaken to still dark

Yet August sheds nighttime with haste,

Bathing in the reddening dawn as the earliest light

Showers a sleepy forest in Apollo's arrival.

I turn

to the mountains,

the granite glistening in its morning glow as

we stand face to face.

I yearn to know this rock all at once--

Watch wisps of clouds shatter over jagged peaks,

Hear the wails of steady, indignant pines below;

Wilted in their protest by the arrogance of sea-born land,

Grown to cut the sky.

If I am too small, too unworthy of your towering pinnacles,

Then pull me close, O mountain.

Your power in the weight of my body,

Limbs outstretched to seek welcome in pebbled edges: I am offered to you.

Meet my fingertips so, and mix skin to dirt--

In your bladed illusions of solace,

I will sacrifice my verdure.

With my own strength, exhaust me--

I will toss and shake against the harsh cold of absent sun

in the crux of your sharp angles, yet

cling to you tighter.

Threaten me with the sky beneath us,

My sentence the earth I flee

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Eve Girzadas is 18 years old and based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She will attend Barnard College in the fall and is an avid outdoors enthusiast.