The promise conveyed
by arm gestures sweeping up the side
towards the mountain peak –
go there, climb the climb, reach
that lofty goal and all you can see
will be yours.
But what then? What good
being so far from the hands of people,
untouchable from the heights –
only the wind in your ears, carrying
sounds from a world you forsook
along the way.
Observe that pinnacle change.
Building is still required, resources
food shelter water – love?
Angles give way to levelling,
conforming to environment, settling
on what’s there.
Whether casting stones
down, or brushing pebbles aside to clear
a smooth, well-travelled path –
gravitational pull insists
on re-connection. The impact will land
on solid ground. Material.
****
Decide, do you want to be
the lonely hermit on a mountain peak
who casts no shadow, sees only distance.
who passes a life worshipping life, and the earth, yet
offers only witness to the discomfort below,
refuses the burden of shame.
Or the ant in the hill, who eats the dirt and the seeds
and stores them away for leaner times
to share with the colony,
becomes an alchemist of soil,
opening channels in the hillside,
for air and water to flow equally.
The transmigration of earth to flowing mud
consumes all who rely on it,
hermit and ant alike.
Decide, rebuild and begin again,
or lay down and quit.
Whether now or later – who lives best?
Decide! The distant mountains
are not eternal, and pebbles
also return to earth.
LMC