The Summit Poem by Chris Zachariou

I had lived all my life in the foothills
of the angry mountain, cowering in
worn-out scrolls and faded manuscripts.
The early prophecy for me was harsh.
‘You were never meant to scale heights'
his voice warned me when I was seven.

Many came past my hovel, some
stopped awhile, but no one ever stayed;
the lure of the summit was too strong.
I envied those with such resolve—
men with maps, charts and compasses.

In the season of the final storm,
a poet came straddling a mountain tiger
with white and yellow stripes. She wore
garlands of hibiscus and a crown of verses,
she crafted in the cradle of a startling sun.

Ignoring the wise judgement of the elders,
I fell to my knees and pled with her to stay.
I cast all my fishing nets to the north wind
and bought a hunter's gun and knife.

She asks for the cracked kaleidoscope
a beggar gave me in a downtown favela
then she laughs and says 'I am too needy'.

We writhe and wrestle on a creaky bed
for forty days and forty nights.
Her thighs are a gateway to Sodom and Gomorrah,
and her nipples scarlet red, like strawberries in June.

Tomorrow I must face the mountain
or, like all others, she will leave me.
Throughout the night, I'm tormented by the thought
that in the morning, I will find that the stories
of fierce monsters and infernos raging on the summit,
were never more than just a myth.