THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN
On the top of Canon Mountain
He stood against the sky.
A profile forged in Granite,
He kept a watchful eye
On Franconia Notch below him
And the shores of Profile Lake.
We never thought we'd see him leave,
Now our hearts, forever, ache.
What the glaciers started
Two hundred million years ago...
The chiseled chin and Roman nose,
Carved by ice and snow,
In a fog that wrapped the mountain,
Had simply slipped away.
New Hampshire woke, to find him gone,
That fateful third of May.
With cables and epoxy,
Turnbuckles and our prayers,
We fought for near one hundred years,
To try and keep him there.
But man is no opponent
To nature at her best,
And as she gave him to us,
She gave to him, his rest.
Some say he was just ledges,
Twelve hundred feet up, high.
But he was so much more to us
Who grew beneath his eye.
He watched us from his aerie,
Stoic, in his gaze.
Symbolizing what we were,
Stubborn in our ways.
I find it now, ironic,
As we're engulfed in war,
And the leaders in our Government,
Want power, all the more,
That The Old Man simply let go,
As fog blanketed the sky,
In a state where we proclaim that
We shall "Live Free or Die".
©Josie-Lynn Belmont
If you are unfamiliar with what "The Old Man of the Mountain" was, you can find information at:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_of_the_Mountain