A Pinnacle of Stony Tries

A Pinnacle of Stony Tries

The mountain started it.

Imposing its challenge

upon sky and sea.

I must accept it.

I am compelled to conquer.

I've become drawn to touching,

sharing senses,

exchanging skin.

Stoicism is a rock.

Yeah, right.

Both are metonyms,

found in caverns up high,

like oxymoronic holes in the sky.

Spelunking down the spyglass,

on stalagmite stairs;

pointing the way

in collected columns,

that climb

like us.

Rocks feel pressure,

cave in and crumble;

like grains of time,

an avalanche of life,

too much for itself

to hold it together.

Ascending I dare to grapple,

with textures and temperatures,

gradients by degrees

of warmth rest

in the velvet granite

flesh, accepting,

caressing sand paper cheeks

I trust the friction.

Finding my weight

propped against the mass,

I hold the balance.

The weight erodes, sloughed

in pebbles of problems;

raining by rocks in applause,

anticipating their early release,

from master sculptor,

whose has been a model prisoner,

Medusa obeying and repelling.

A climb is not a race.

A scale includes the middle march;

all possible paths, knobs,

and steps fossilize.

Planning each step,

I am pulled up by my own

labored breath,

my stomach in knots secure my spot.

I am too heavy on myself.

Yet,

the higher I get,

the further away,

I like to stay

because now I can see

all that I've known,

becoming strange, deranged.

I strain to focus on all that is,

and it clearly became,

miniature and small.

It is meaningless,

without this fight

to keep holding on,

even if I never make it

to the top

and Fall,

forgetting

all about

looking back

down

at the waiting world,

I found my wings

while giving up.

Image By George Edward Mannering [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo of Emmeline Freda du Faur (1862-1974) first female mountaineer in New Zealand.