Not a Mountain

by Anna Fleming

I am not a mountain

I am lichen and stone,
water and ice, eagles and
sphagnum; hares, birch,
ptarmigan, lynx.

Without salmon
and deer, rowan and heather;
plover, wolf, wind,
pine

I am not a mountain.

Tall and jagged, vast and wild,
I may look like a mountain –

but my skin is stretched thin

flanks turn
deathly green.

You who feast on simplicity
worship a shadow

I am not a mountain

Come gorge on our loss.