Farewell to a Mountain

by David Bentley Hart (5.20.11)

For two years, we have lived in a forest on the convergent lower slopes
of two mountain ranges, and above a shallow wooded ravine that
descends to a narrow streambed on our side and rises up on the opposite
side towards the high ridge that looms above our treetops to the west.
During our time here, that mountain has been a commanding and
magnificent presence for us, seeming at times almost impossibly near at
hand, at other times forbiddingly remote, but always silently, sublimely
watchful.
Nearly every morning, no matter the season, it is mantled in clouds,
sometimes so heavily that it disappears altogether behind opaque walls
of pearl-gray mist.
And nearly every evening, as the sun descends below its ridgeline, the
whole mountain is briefly crowned in purple and pale gold, and the
southwest horizon, where the ridge descends, is transformed into a gulf
of amethyst, rose, and orange.
When the darkness falls, moreover, there is none of the dull rufous pall
that the glare of city lights casts up to hide the stars in heavily populated
areas.
On clear nights, the sky becomes a deep crystal blue for perhaps half an
hourand then the sky becomes an ocean of stars.
Here in our shady submontane seclusion, cool breezes constantly blow
down from the peaks above, and through the southern pass, even during
the hottest months of summer. The soughing of the trees rises and falls
as the gusts strengthen or weaken, but never wholly abates, and the
sunlightreaching us through the filtering leavesincessantly flickers
and undulates around our house. The birds are so numerous and various
that their songs blend inextricably together, and only occasionally can
one momentarily recognize a particular phrasea goldfinch, say, or a
cardinalbefore it merges back into the larger polyphony. Then only the

short, sharp staccato of the woodpeckers is immediately recognizable.

Just now, however, the more dominant music here is the oddly sweet
mixed chorus of the woodland frogs, especially at night, but throughout
the day as well. The rain this spring, here as in much of the country, has
been heavy and regular, and so the ditches are full to overflowing, and
gleam like silver when viewed at an oblique slant. The smaller
depressions at their edges, also full of water, catch the reflections of
overhanging leaves, and the green mingles with the gray of their silt in
such a way that they often look like pools of jade. When one comes
nearer, however, all the standing water is quite clear and filled with
small black tadpoles. Next years frog choruses will be louder.
Life abounds under the brow of the mountain. All the woodland
creatures one would expect, great and small, are heredeer and black
bears, glistening black snakes and tawny foxes, Ruby-Throated
Hummingbirds and owls and Blue-Tailed Skinks, and so on. The
butterflies at the moment are becoming quite plentiful; there are Black
Swallowtails, Zebra Swallowtails, Tiger Swallowtails, but also Red
Admirals, and Painted Ladies, and a host of others. And azure and
emerald and opalescent beetles and flies are now appearing as well.
(That photograph, I should note, was taken not by me, but by my wife.)
The mountain ridge can be reached by foot, if one is willing to make the
effort. The best passage to the top lies northwest of our house, and one
must follow it first down into the ravine, into its green depths, through
the shadows of its deciduous trees and immense Loblolly Pines, over
carpets of moss and ferns and creeping juniper, and across the narrow
stream that just now is coursing quite vigorously. The best pathnot the
easiest, but the most idylliclies across a small waterfall created by a
thick tangle of oak and Asian Tulip roots over a minor subsidence in the
soil. Mountain laurel is extremely plentiful in the ravine, and at present
is in full blossom. Bronze and golden box turtles lurk in the shade and
by the water.
The ascending slope from there is quite gentle at first, and only

becomes an arduous climb at a few places. In all, it takes only about

two hours to reach the ridge if one keeps moving. If one sets out well
before dawn, and arrives at the top in time to see the sunrise, one will
find oneself walking as much in the clouds as through the trees, and
there is a brief period (twenty minutes or so) when the sunlight first
reaches the ridge, at a sharply lateral angle, and one is all at once
passing through shifting veils of translucent gold. Unfortunately, it is an
effect that no photograph can capture: invariably, it is not only the rich
aurous lambency of the scene that is lost, but the impression of depths
within depths, layer upon layer.
In any event, I can do none of this any justice. To describe the place
with anything like the detail or lyricism it merits would be a long, and
perhaps interminable, task. I have relied on pictures simply because I do
not quite have the words right now. In a week, we will be gone. Family
responsibilities necessitate our moving to a larger houseone very
pleasantly set in a grove of tall tress, but not watched over by our
mountain. I simply feel as if it has been a rare privilege to live here for
the time we have had, and that I ought to pay some tribute to the place
before leaving, out of some sense of honor or natural piety.
So one last photograph. I actually took it soon after our arrival here, as
my son (age ten at the time) was watching the sunset for the first time
from our porch, over the small open glade to our southwest. But at the
moment it seems to capture something for me, a mood at once of
delighted wonder and deep sadness. It comes as close as I can at present
to expressing the farewell that I want to wish this house and that
mountain. It is a melancholy with which I suspect we are all familiar at
some level, as individuals and as a race, something that haunts us and of
which my sadness is only a fragmentary reminderthe feeling of having
lost paradise.
David Bentley Hart is contributing editor of First Things . His most
recent book is Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its
Fashionable Enemies (Yale University Press). His other On the
Square articles can be found here .