Origin of a Mountain
Lindsey Wayland | Poetry
My grandmother used to tell me a story
that her great-grandmother told:
The origin of a mountain is a stone’s prayer
to the wind: please erode everything but me.
Time lifts the mountain.
And when rocks rumble down the leeward side,
it is the wind who begs
to be seen.
Lindsey Wayland is a poet, calligrapher, and researcher with an MFA in poetry from Pacific University. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Southern Humanities Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Amsterdam Review, the Haiku Society of America, and others. Wayland was a finalist for the 2024 Patricia Cleary Miller Award for Poetry by New Letters. A native Texan, she lives with her husband and three children in Port Townsend, Washington. Find her online at www.lindseywayland.com.