On Long Mountain

On Long Mountain, in Virginia, one can hike a stretch of the Appalachian Trail or walk the old wagon road that Shenandoah farmers traveled to deliver their goods over the Blue Ridge Mountains east to the James River markets. Also on Long Mountain is the 180-year-old log house where Elizabeth Seydel Morgan wrote, or was inspired to write, many of the poems in this exquisite collection.

Though solitude and the abundant natural world in the Blue Ridge are often starting points, Morgan's relation with nature is never uninvolved with human nature. The fork of the Buffalo River that runs by her mountain retreat becomes, in "Letter to Conrad," the forked tongue of the Arch-Seducer, while, in other selections, gnats foster thoughts of sex, summer heat summons Greek tragedy, two young stags connect with city violence. In "Moon Arrangement," a woman considers her aging body: "And month after month that magnet moon / powers our dark waters / as if we were still an ocean."

In "Swimming in the Aegean," Morgan cannot ignore the tragedies of the ancient and modern worlds ("Or I see a woman like me, / shopping for a particular fish, / extinguished in a firestorm / in Pompeii, in Sarajevo"). Her meditations on the past contribute a certain wistfulness to On Long Mountain: "This woven moment / holding time / around me like a nest"--but by the end of this poem, Morgan balances that emotion with acerbic humor. "Perseid Night" questions what is intelligible to our senses, what messages make meaning, and, finally, "Are any getting answers beneath this no-show heaven?"

On Long Mountain is a collection of the observations, reflections, and questions of a woman who has passed fifty--that signpost to everyone's metaphorical long mountain.