Chomolungma

[wastedwalrus]

“Chomolungma”

Chomolungma, Sagarmatha,
You are the high mother goddess.
Your peaks of white and cleansing snow
Erect the forehead of the sky.

Your summit is shrouded by clouds
And the frigid mist is your blanket.
You roar and whisper with the winds
And so your mighty breath echoes.

But then from the West they appeared.
They battled your might in triumph
And emerged as victors as you
Fell victim, defiled and humbled.

Now that you they have ascended,
And reached your brow of snow and ice,
The peak that was before so splendid
Has faded from the hazy sky.




Chomolungma is what Tibetans call Mount Everest. Sagarmatha is the Napalese (sp?) term (or perhaps a different, nearby culture). Both mean "high mother goddess". In their culture (and in many of the other Himalayan cultures) Mount Everest was sacred and it was perceived as sinful to try to reach its summit. Then a Brit by the name of Everest came by, renamed the mountain, and began the craze of climbing the mountain. This is meant to express not only how the West affected the Himalayan mountains, but on a grander scale: Himalayan culture.

 

[wastedwalrus]

I guess this may be a little arrogant of me but this piece was an experiment for me and I was hoping I could get some feedback and some critique. So, I apologize for the bump. Thanks.

 

[New]

Well, I think it's pretty good...it's an interesting outlet for expressing how the West came and stomped on the East.

 

[wastedwalrus]

I forgot to welcome critiques

 

[(Wordy)]

Don't touch the opening stanza - it's beautiful! The Tibetan / Nepalese words are enchanting, and I love the pure, startling image of the 3rd/4th lines.

I found the opening of the third stanza disruptive in terms of tense: "But then from the West..." suggests that what precedes this line should be in past tense. And what happened before they came from the West? The first two stanzas evoke timelessness rather than historical events, if that makes sense, so it's kind of a jolt. You could just change the phrasing of that 9th line, but perhaps an alternative would be to add in a stanza about how Everest was sacred, and it was forbidden to climb to the summit? That is a major point of interest, after all...

 

[wastedwalrus]

You're absolutely right abotu the tense which is hilarious because I changed it the night after I posted this. Unfortunately, bluelight is weird and I can't edit most of my posts. All of stanza three is now in the present tense with meter still intact. I was thinking that the speaker is a Tibetan or Napalese observer so that's why that one stanza seemed to make sense at the time.

But I like your idea about taking a different direction entirely for that one stanza. I'll keep looking over it.

Thanks man