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. 

Sol Ascent

Learning is a peak, 

an ascending effort to change the view

expansive and panoramic, uncontained

by what is beyond being seen

from where you stand.

Discovery starts as a reaching sapling 

rewarded for breaking through the mire

by having its roots wrenched with envy,

a weed nestled in the woods

for resting, not reminding. 

Education is an island destination,

whose currents carved defenses

guarded by volcanic concepts,

corralling massive schools

in warm biodiverse cesspools.

Knowing is weather, temporal conditions

the subject of changing you, today

being prepared for the unpredictable;

knowledge wields power like a lever,

breaking in or out, the damage is done.

All the while we keep seeking

views we would rather lose,

the forest for its functionality,

learning the leaves, one believes

knowledge is a plucked flower.

All in reliance upon the Sun

whose punctured question 

marks the sky, answering all 

wisdom reaps its reward 

in the warm gift of a lonely smile. 

Image By Hillebrand Steve, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.