Reaching The Summit

Taller Than The Mountains

Summits are meshed into the skies
and the eyes cannot see that far.
His willpower can.
He cuts through the long shadows of short sunrays
and buries his fears inside the bellies of crags.
Freezes his loneliness into unimportant flakes
inside the cold cold snow.

No one can claim the mountain for their own -
Not Edmund Hillary, nor Tenzing Norgay
(though they scaled the Everest's summit)
Even for the tallest adventurer, the mountains loom taller.
And with the first step he takes at its base,
he becomes a pebble a rock, at the mercy of the winds.
He becomes a whisper dashing against bottomless valleys.
A labored breath, a tortured lung.

What keeps him going is only the next step
One more, just one more, and then another.
The skin of every climber is the mountain's flag
the courage of every Sherpa its peg.
That way, mountains are only chests
breathing hard, beating fast.

The summit beckons afresh every morning
Moistens the climber's lips like salted butter tea
It is so long, this arduous climb - it goes on forever.
The clock loses its sense of time
A mile becomes one baby step.

Will he be himself when he conquers the summit
and measures the world in the span of his arms?
Or will he become a bird in the sky?
Perhaps he will become God.

The summit comes to him in his dreams
Like an inviting light
Like the fragrance of freedom
Like the liberation of his soul from his body

He will reign over the summit someday;
every single step he takes is a step in that direction;
even if it only helps him get through the day
even if it's nothing spectacular at this point in time
But that's how summits are reached;
with tiny grains of resolve
that then grow into a mountain larger the one he intends to climb.