Mountain Fist (Lifting Everest)

To hold a mountain tight within your fist

is a heavy, dragging kind of curse;
one that either makes a man strong
or leaves him unable to move.

And I, capturing Everest
am yet sure which of the two I am.
Most often I am not alone
but there are days, like now
that everything but me has gone.

At times I can lift the sky like a lid
and see past into what is good.
At others I am completely blind
and stumble on even the smallest stone.

So my prayer, lifted to this January dawn
is that a mountain would become a ladder
that I would learn to climb
and so, somehow,
become the gold that won the fire.