Climbers
Moon Over Nepal
Moon over Cholatse, aberration in early light.
Half visible from height of high peak:
fleeting night, startling morning.
Ice capped peak, sworn to unrelenting—
pounding storms, blistering sun.
Figure on Himalayan skyline: jagged.
In turn,
climbed and bested by the toothéd boots of mountaineers.
Plunging precipices and reaching summits,
gale-force winds and
:: stillness ::
to make for long
hours.
I I
Still in photo,
violent
in
actuality: mountain in Cholatse; mountain in range.
Exposed rock up-thrust like
exposed flesh:::frozen animation.
Demeaning curses in howling winds,
“turn backs” at switchbacks, but the
moon is hung
and eyes do see—
progression of steps
in progression of time,
life
in breaths,
survival in foot step!
I I
Mountaineers persist
unbeknownst to the world— and—its—effects,
ever rising to join the moon.
I I
Jagged cliffs do claim important lives,
they unbelieving until it is them,
ripping and sliding down gullies—
hands out to grasp sharp edges,
air : Air : AIR—
promise of icy jabs and maddening deaths.
I I
Vows of God unheard
until unabated judgment;
moments;
slip of rope,
zing
through carabineer
song
of travel
down
down.
Slip of unclean ice, step,
step of breakthrough,
imagined earth on
insignificant fall
away to death untold.
Last whispers undelivered:
forever turning in waves of upset
physicality. See coming earth:
grounded.
I I
Avalanche slope rockets through passes,
careening through lives tethered in snow:
a deep rumble and it’s all dusted new.
Forceful night transformations
absented cornices; forgotten camps.
Perseverance in the worst way—leaving life,
to regain art of death.
Mountain crossed and pass stomped,
risen mornings of castrated sleep,
awakenings of both internal and external.
Worlds of wind and landscape
abstracted from cityscape
I I
Language of precipice, lodged in cortex.
Unnamed climbs of untamed peaks,
restless months in pursuit of the glory
of the belittlement—
of what it is to climb
>found
in the tongue
of the trekker;
foreign to all others,
moon over Cholatse peak.
______________________________
Sarah Sala
U. of Michigan
December 5, 2005 |
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