Notes About The Poem
This poem has drawn inspiration from G M Hopkins' "O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap, May who ne’er hung there."
Terrible Geography
The mind has peaks
no Sherpa knows
sudden drops
where thoughts
thin out
like oxygen
at twenty thousand feet.
Avalanche thoughts
bury certainty.
Your grip tears skin
on ice-sharp edges
of almost-understanding.
Below are the
crevasses deep
as yesterday's regrets,
echoing
familiar voices
lost in white.
Wind cuts through
the space between
base camp comfort
and what
waits above
the death zone.
Frostbite burns
circle your fingertips
the attempt
to hold
what altitude
has already
stolen.
Only the fallen
know the weight of thin air.
Only the hanging
over glacier cracks
know the value
of solid ground.
This terrible geography
some must
navigate alone.
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