The Mountain That Still Needs Climbing Poem by Denis Mair

Up on the mountain where people keep horses
A thoroughbred took me on a morning walk.
And whenever her head reared in laughter
I wanted to gallop with her through space.
I found a leaf on a big woody stem
Which would make a spoon for sipping sunset clouds,
Perfect for scooping up the twilight dew
But she told me it would be my weapon now;
I should take it to find the mountain lions,
But first I should give my face a lion-like expression
So the lions could show up halfway human.
I would join their war council near the peak
And negotiate for the safety of Kelsie-dog
With her curtsey perfected in Louis' court
Not a dog to slog in a bog, a doggone dog of god
That deserves my special esteem!
And what is more, my walking companion
Blessed my weapon with a shake of her mane
To let it double as a planting tool,
Suitable to scoop up beancurd squeezings
To make perfect compost for my flowers.
'A forty-year old woman is like beancurd squeezings
A fifty-year old man is like a flower, '

I came up the mountain in a puffing car
The red needle was near the red zone
But the mountain cooled my radiator.
I climbed this far, then we watched hawks
Climb circles in the deep well of sky.
I got drunk on blue, and almost fell in
And realized the climb had just begun.
Her voice sang like a mountain wind
In the shell of my ear, in the net of my nerves;
Her song set me loose to play in fields in color
It called up scenes of stained glass
Behind my eyes transforming
Then fading away in the breeze.
Please give me that light again
After all the movies I've seen
In a theater outside of me,
All those cheap flashes I did not earn,
I will prove how precious
My own scenes of light can be.