The afternoon saw me climbing

Hand over hand and foot over grass

Edinburgh’s Salisbury Crags

And all her views to conquer.

I stumbled up, light as dew,

A surface, sharp and jutting

Over all that light could touch.

The rain was just enough

To make me blink unexpectedly

Against the knocking on the

Door of the soul, even though

It lay open, myself all but bare

To the world, as it were.

Pulling a pen from my pocket

I resolved to memorialize

Myself in the mountaintop,

Not through words or verse

But more permanently.

I dug and pulled at several

rocks seemingly small

But anxious to stay put,

Connected and unmolested

By man and time and

Little pieces of selfish

Memorabilia. I apologized

To the Queen of all stone,

And slid softly down her

Back, ‘cross the smile

And away into the

Heavier rain to the south.