After Mont Blanc

After Mont Blanc

We climbed too high, the light grew thin,

The sky turned steel, it pressed us in.

No path ahead, just slope and drop,

The wind said go, the breath said stop.

Our fingers cracked beneath our gloves,

No help, no speech, no signs above.

We moved because we had to move,

No comfort left, no cause to prove.

The snow was deep, it pulled us down,

Each step a war, each breath a crown.

We didn’t speak, we didn’t cry,

We only looked to where, not why.

The mountain watched, it did not care,

It offered stone, and cold, and air.

We fought the slope with dying grace,

No fear, no pride, just frozen face.

The ice was glass beneath each heel,

A slip away from all that’s real.

And yet we stayed, we skied, we fell,

In silence vast, too wide to tell.

A crevice opened, wide and still,

It did not pull, it had no will.

But something passed inside us then,

That never found its way again.

We reached the base, our legs were sore,

No flags, no cheers, no open door.

Just breathing now, and standing still,

Survived by chance, not strength or will.

We lived, we left, we can’t explain,

Why nothing’s sweet, and all is plain.

Mont Blanc behind, but not undone,

We skied, we broke, we saw no sun.