“Far Off Mountains” makes both moment and memory
Sometimes what a poem does is remind us of a mood or moment. It conjures up our own memories even if we do not have enough information to understand the poet’s specific memory. The Ou-Yang Hsiu poem, “Far Off Mountains” from Love & Time, translated by J. P. Seaton, works this way.
Here is the poem:
Far Off Mountains
Mountain colors, up close, far off,
all day going, as I gaze at the crags.
Different peaks in view from every different place:
I will not know their names.
“Far Off Mountains” has me in mind of many mountain-scapes I’ve seen. Like a film strip, I imagine them one after another, though none are specifically described.
It reminds me of the way I have felt, often wordless, marveling at “Different peaks in view from every different place” in many locations:
- Cruising along Alaska’s coastal glacial ranges.
- Driving in the Peruvian Andes.
- Hiking the granite slopes near Prescott, Arizona.
- Traversing Arizona’s Sonoran landscape with mountains in the distance.
Memory is an act of will, or will not
At the same time, it also describes knowing how I will feel. Even if I can know the exact names humans have given to mountains, I cannot know their names in any deep sense.
The superficial names I might have known tend to slip away over time leaving a sense of individuals standing in the world with roots that go to the depths of the earth, waiting and timeless. And even if I know their names today, as they slip into memory, “I will not know” their names.
And not knowing their names is both inevitable and, also packed into that one little word “will,” is a choice. “I will not know their names” implies choosing to let go. It implies letting deep knowledge pass in favor of what is more lasting: the moments passing by, different views “from every different place”.
Of course, I can say all that, but it doesn’t give the breadth of memories the poem conjured up for me. It doesn’t tell you what I am thinking of–because nothing truly can. That’s the problem with memories–they are individual, idiosyncratic, and like all the true specificity of life we don’t have sufficient words to describe them. Hence the need for art–whether poetry, painting, sculpture, photography, or another form.
So rather than continue to describe how “Far Off Mountains” conjures up my own memories of “all day going” amongst mountains, I thought some photos would help.
First up, coastal Alaska:
Then, the Andes, in Central Peru:
Closer to home (but not that close), Arizona:
I realized, going through my photos, that there are many more locations I could have chosen. Mountains seem to be high (lol) on both my vacation and business destinations. I passed up views of the Grand Canyon, northern Arizona, and the mountains around Jackson Hole and Yellowstone, and many more. Otherwise this post might have gone on forever…
…which means, it might have been “all day going”.