The Lonely Mountain

Today marks the second to last day of fall break. Like the rest of the semester, it's gone by too fast. Four days ago, I got a letter from a friend. This letter contained a list of things to accomplish over my break, since I was staying at Covenant while all the people around me were headed back to home sweet home. "Okay," I said. "I can do this." And so it began. Some things were easy for me--taking a photo every day, spending quality time with my brother, watching movies. Then came number four: write lots of poems.

I spent a handful of lonely nights sitting on my futon trying to pull ideas from every corner of my imagination. Nothing. I was confused. The few weeks before, ideas flowed out of my head like water from a fountain, and now my fountain had run dry. Finally, yesterday, at 2:00am, I sat down and stared at my blank computer screen. Then I typed slowly: "Write a poem."

I looked at it puzzled for a moment. And then thoughts started to flow again. My inspiration had come from something I would never have thought of--my lack of inspiration. Was it possible?
Even if it wasn't, I kept going with the flow.

As I wrote out the words, all I could think about was the friends that I missed--not just from Covenant, but also back home. The lack of everyone around me made me crumble into the loneliness of reality.

By now, it was 3:00am, and my words were finally a complete trove of feelings. At that moment, a song came on: Hello Seattle (Remix) by Owl City. I would have thought nothing of it at any other time, but this timing happened to be perfect. As the last words flowed from my head, the piano melody began. And I sat in awe, as the melody playing began to match each word from my poem.

It was 3:30am, but for the next hour, I worked on putting my words to the music and making a video. I finished it at 4:45am. I was too excited for words as I put it on youtube, and even texted a few friends to share my excitement. For me, this was the climax of my hard work, and I was praying that my friends would find the same excitement as they listened to it the following morning.

I went to bed praying that they would realize the depth and meaning that I had given each word.
Morning came, and I awoke to find several encouraging comments on my video. I was relieved to find that I what I had intended to make meaningful and deep had come across exactly that way.

Here is the video:

And here is the poem:

"Write a poem."
"It wouldn't be so hard," she said.
"But I've lost my inspiration."
"They're all gone. All of them.
And now the grass no longer has any color.
The skies, no birds.
The sun and his golden rays are here.
I see them.
But his warmth is so distant, so far away.
The symphony of the mountain is now gone.
It is but an empty staff.
And I am only one note.
I cannot make a melody alone.
So I await their return."