"You can do it!"
chants a chorus of voices,
carried on the wind.
"Look how far you've come!"
But I don't see it.
I'm too afraid to look down,
only to find
how far I have to fall.
I gaze unseeingly
toward the summit,
hoping, calculating,
knowing I want to get there,
yet unable to discern
my next movement
from my aching limbs.
I am infinitesimal.
I am but a speck of stardust,
clinging
to the side of a mountain,
just one detail
in a bigger picture,
though of what, I admit,
I'm no longer quite sure.
Fine, let's say I make it--
what plains will I find there,
what home,
what fertile lands?
But then I remember
those voices have hands,
hands th