What Climbers Know

You learn the barbed sting that surges from heel

to spine, convulsing the heart, is your enemy. It

denies

the logic of balance and miracle of setting forth.

It declares you immortal in valleys.

You could answer that basalt is lavish

with handholds, that you know the linked pitches

of a massif like music. You could claim

the elegance of your trail past couloir

and serac, say how in threat of avalanche

you belay panic to its proper gully. That earth

falls away as well in hollows. You could bivouac

on a rock face whose barely nourishing air

conforms to your suspended hammock,

to the silence and light of mountains.

You could affirm that in ascending

you come to where you always are.