Beyond Courageous Life Must Burn [mallory And Irvine] Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

Beyond Courageous Life Must Burn [mallory And Irvine]



As old men talk of scarce remembered youth
Of beauty's distant mysteries faded
With piquancy that's half imagined
Where nothing mars or seems uncouth
And only finest art can shape the truth
Conjuring boys to life no joys withheld.

Refrain:

Cover with the sky the stars' embrace
Snow tip Sacred Mother Sagarmatha
Man breaker, fate shaker, life breath taker
Dream as shadows light across your face
And wake to deeds that leave immortal trace
Per ardua ad astra.

When still cubs as snow lions romped and chased
Among the icy peaks and cols and caves
One played among the ships that chance the waves
The other through the fields and laneways raced
In sports and games both loss and winning tasted
So country sets the path that glory paves.

Meek like the tiger set to bound and spring
They lived to test their skills and make their way
Where mountains beckoned for prey and play
To take up the chase where the wind horns sing
And matching peril set aside death's sting
With peaks made quarry o'er the hunting day.

Inscrutable the dragon wise and sly
Shingle clad snow-dusted cold and sleeping
Shakes its rocky scales with scree-shards reaping
Waking, uncoiling, snarling at the sky
Recoiling back from those whose footsteps try
To wrest away the secret she is keeping.

Fierce and outrageous like the phoenix
Beyond courageous, life must burn
Vanquish none but ourselves is what they yearn
As ambition stokes its desperate tricks
So ever upward embers seal their tracks
And there is no way back when none can turn

In fellowship and practised skill sets sound
By heaven's stars, it seemed an easy leap
To cleft within the steps and pipes so steep,
Where fathom line could never touch the ground,
And brace up arms against the slips that downed,
To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,

Set to test and try to life's cliff's edge
Strong to the harm in heedless danger sped
Chancing all but fellowship's linked tread
Picks and crampons hammer and wedge
Risk taking all at scarp and ice and ledge
Two men to glory born though mortal bred.

There they stood, ranged across the sheer-sides, set
My lasting view of them a living frame
For one more picture! Into clouds of fame
I saw them move and lost them then. And yet
Dauntless to task and way beyond regret,
Two climbers to the towering summit came.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Topic(s) of this poem: courage
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