Big Misery

Oh the trails of big misery

They pull me ever forward

Purple wildflower meadows

Blankets of boggy grasslands

Rocks, logs and glacial creeks

Rising firs and pines touch sky

Birds and squirrels interplay

Passing through morning's dew 

The trail an ever steady incline  

Brings about a scene change

I look around at trees top

Amongst them in the sky blue

Whats taken them years to know

I have now found in a few hours

Canopy below the rocks emerge

Red, void, open like a planet new 

Exposed left, right and center

Once blanketed by snow and ice

Then by howling wind and rain 

Now exposed and sun drenched

The extremes are not inviting

Except the hawk soaring above

Boots feel heavy pack tight too

I look back and see the world

Forward all I can see is you

Snowy white and truly massive

A step from jagged rock to ice

The glacier a blank canvas anew

So white that it illuminates all

Over ground not seen by man 

The ice is hard with modest slope

Crackling softly under heavy step

The air dry and unwelcoming

Thin on what the lounges crave

I look up and see her peak false

To think it the top a fools folly

The pitch increases ever steady

Air grows thinner still feet heavy

To look back a scary slope of ice

Forward a daunting wall of work

A false summit is bitter sweet

To stand flat and survey the view

Yet see a mountain ahead of you

The wind and sun unrelenting

A reminder that this is not home

Just a place to visit and return

Reducing elevation painfully

Before regaining that ground 

The misery that is the mountain

Many stopped along the way

Discouraged, afraid and tired

Those who climb still go alone

Even when with a group or two

Climber, thin air and self doubt

Few words are said if any at all

But books written on the soul

As man combats his inner self 

To see the true peak sobering

And mount the pinnacle view

Climbers laugh and marvel

Not in what they can see afar

But what's found at their core

A man visits a mountain's top

Through pain it tests his will

And sorrow it tests his faith

Revealing the insecure self

And the courage to prevail

 

Nicholas Campos August 2024