The wide road is an old ghost,
worn smooth by those who sought
the shortest distance between two points
of safety.
To step off is to feel the sudden weight
of the mountain, the deep crevasse
between the push of the crowds
and the solitary pull of the peak.
The harder climb demands
a tactile intimacy. It is found
in the scrape of shale against the palm
and the way the lungs must learn
the thin, cold logic of the rarefied air.
Here, the boulders are not obstacles
but instead provide architecture—
granite altars where the casual self
is shed to make room for the person
who can survive the summit.
There’s a kind of gestalt to the courage
found here. It is not the loud bravery
of the theater, but the quiet finesse
of one shaping a life through the patient
progress of the climb.
In the thicket, where exotic flowers
bloom in the shadows, you meet the others;
those who looked at the easy slope
and chose the jagged line knowing
that a life without resistance,
is a life without form. They are tribe.
At some point, the map dissolves.
The path becomes a singular dialogue
between foot and stone, an unknown trail
only you can walk. Whether the grade is
steep or the meadow’s wide,
the destination remains the same.
And the one who arrives at the Summit
is always a stranger to the one who began.
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