Mt. Rainier National Park's Centennial Celebration   Christine Hemp was the first poet-in-residence at Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota. She was also a Park poet at Capulin Volcano National Park in New Mexico. She was the poet this year for Mt. Rainier National Park’s Centennial Celebration and performed a multi-media presentation outdoors at the Park’s Cougar Rock Campground Amphitheater.  She led workshops on the mountain and gave a multi-media performance at Cougar Rock campground with poetry, flute, and slides. She also participated in the Seafirst Gallery’s exhibition performance by reading her own poems and those of the late Denise Levertov. THE VESSEL for Mt. Rainier National Park on its Centennial Celebration AUGUST 14, 1999 for Mt. Rainier National Park on its Centennial Celebration My father would say, “The Mountain’s out today!” and he’d smile while I, astonished looked across at him behind the wheel. Driving down I-5, it was as if he had a magic eye. How do you know? I’d ask again. Then we’d round the bend and sure enough, like Oz at the end of the road, or the biggest ice cream cone ever: Elegant flowing, pink with morning sun, the shapely mountain stood in our path, spilling glaciers down her sides. Years later my father confessed about the cut in the trees on one stretch of the highway —where on a clear day, the mountain peeked through for an instant. We marveled at his mystic powers, but how, in the end, it’s the mountain who has the last word. She decides when she’ll grace us with her shape or when she’ll hide for days and weeks, shrouded with clouds. Tonight on the shoulder of this peak we huddle, bound by the night and edges of what is wild. The summit is hidden, but in our bones and flesh we feel the stirrings underneath. Volcanic veins and glacial waters pulse and flow. We are but a drop in the giant vessel, glittering briefly, then disappearing downstream, gone with the tide of all that passes. This mountain stays. She is not only nature but wilderness and wildness, unfettered by choice or moral code. Tomorrow we will pour down her sides and leave this corporate body of timber and ice. But like a lover whose scent we carry always, the mountain will reveal herself again through the cut in the trees of our daily lives – when folding laundry, sipping coffee, or checking e-mail. Suddenly we’ll hear, “The Mountain is out!” and we’ll be filled with a restless longing, a primal urge, and slowly we’ll turn our faces toward the face of mighty Tahoma, forever stirred by what she holds.   Christine Hemp   home · resume · recent publications · schedule · technical writing · course offerings list of clients · connecting chord · programs ·  poetry pages · bardic performances · contact Christine Hemp P.O. Box 674 Port Townsend, WA 98368 tel: 360-385-9005