Why We Climb Mountains
        What we get from this adventure is just sheer
        joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life.
                —George Mallory

The ledge invites and frightens, loose gravel
scratching solid rock beneath your feet,
until the grating sound—the rasp and rattle—
is silenced as you step into complete
nothing, carabined between simple faith
and gravity. Will the tether hold?
There is a pull, a tension, in the fray
of scattered thoughts and fear of lost control
pressed against the weightlessness of free fall
on a stretch of braided rope. It takes skill,
and grit, to climb while clinging to sheer wall,
inching upward, pulled by strength and will;
but then, the descent offers you rebirth,
as you coil and push away from Earth.

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Copyright © 2017 Marti Noel All rights reserved
from Rattle
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission