The Mountains are Dancing (again!)

It’s been a long winter of sorrow, yet untold blessing, bringing me straight into the heart of God’s purest, unbound, love (if so inclined, please see my last blog, Love’s Threshing-Floor). But anyone who knows me well knows that each April something quite magical happens. I am jarred awake to the mystery of those dancing mountains…yes, dancing mountains. So, once again, enjoy the story below, a slightly edited re-print of the blog I first posted in 2013. Happy Spring!

The Mountains are Dancing…

 it’s april (yes, april; my darling) it’s spring!

yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly

yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be

(yes the mountains are dancing together)

e.e. cummings

I was twenty the first time I read e.e. cummings’ poem when faces called flowers float out of the ground. I just knew one day I’d get to go to New Hampshire and visit Joy Farm, e.e. cummings’s summer home, because I just knew it was there that he found those mountains dancing.  And, sure enough, in the mid-1980s, fate brought us to New Hampshire and soon after, in April (of course), we made our way up to Madison in search of Joy Farm and those dancing mountains.

It was a weekend and, being April, lots of snow was still on the ground.  We managed to find the entrance to the long driveway up to Joy Farm but it was fenced off and clearly not passable by car.  Undaunted, me, already in full swing with those dancing mountains, was not so easily dissuaded!  So, we made our way back to town in search of someone who might be able to give us some kind of permission to venture up to the farm by foot.  Doug, my husband, with his feet a little closer to the ground, well, actually on the ground, kept reminding me that those mountains would not be dancing, so unabashedly, with me in jail!  Luckily, we were able to locate a man with some authority, in one of the local establishments, who gave us the ok.  I remember he looked quite puzzled when I, especially, could not be persuaded to return in a couple of months when the road to Joy Farm would be passable.  Didn’t he know those mountains were dancing now?!

So, at last, up the long driveway we went!  The house had been vacant awhile yet still felt to be alive, standing, waiting patiently for the return of bare feet, frivolous chatter, the smell of barbecue and stargazing off the porch.  The grounds were open and rambling and a small gazebo-like room, in the middle of the back field, seemed timeless.

But, without a doubt, it was those dancing mountains, cradling, remembering, holding us, that kept me frolicking round and round as if I could somehow fly right into the center of their waking, unguarded alive; we’re alive, dear: it’s (kiss me now) spring! pulse.

Away with respectable composure!  Down with petty self-consciousness!  Let’s dive as the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky and climb as the little fish climb through the mind of the sea! 

It’s April!  We’re sun-drenched alive!  Our faces like flowers float out of the ground!  We’re opening as every leaf opens without any sound!  We’ve quivering, waking, pulsing as the little fish quiver…so you and so I…

So, yes! Let’s dance, unbridled and undone, for its April, my darlings, it’s spring and, most wondrously…

all the mountains are dancing; are dancing…