When the Mountains Gathered

When I was still very young
these mountains first gathered about my town,
all in a strange and perilous night.
Imagine a boy's surprise
to find the sun not risen at its usual hour.
Or to make his bed in the long shadow
of a new and desolate height.
This was mysterious upheaval indeed.
I who had been a child of the plains,
of straight paths and slowly meandering streams,
now wandered tangled ways.
But what most disturbed and frightened me
was that no one seemed to comprehend--
family, neighbors, friends--none perceived
this sudden circumscription of their daily realm.
Was I just seeing things?
Or truly had some unknown power
cinched up the string of our horizon,
and bundled us into this unaccustomed dell?
And if so, then for what purpose?
To carry us into captivity?
Or to set us free?