Colin Mitchell Williams | + Follow Poet |
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Living It

I guess we cling because we have to
all the ropes and ice-picks
these things in the cold
these icicles we hang on to

And strung upon the precipice
are the ladders precarious pathways
set to ignore the avalanche
and lay nonchalance
to the foot and the wind

I suppose we climb because we have to
to scale the barrier
and brave ourselves in steadfast
to surmount this ragged cliff

Develop then tenacity
practice then the grip
and hold fast on any which way belief
any which way you can achieve
for the rocks do not forgive

I imagine by tooth and nail
to hammer out of existence 
the aching limbs of my sufferance
and carve my name into its height

And by such fickle fortune to scale the cliff
and pronounce my claim upon its worth
for all it’s worth in struggle and blood
is written in these frozen hard-line words
but still calls to me from some other distant peak

I do not rest
but count out time by ragged breath
mark by ancient centuries the prominent crag
supplication to bend my knee and neck

One last breath, one last attempt
one more day, one more hour
and once upon a time
life was not something I had to experience
I simply was

And that’s the difference

Copyright © Colin Mitchell Williams | Year Posted 2019

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