(a prose poem for Wendy, written 20 October 2007)
I climbed a mountain for you my love, 10 days after you died.
There was really no comparison, but I made some anyway.
It was hard and tiring work, but not so hard as dying.
My hands grew cold at times, but not so cold as yours did at the end.
My breathing changed. But it did not fade and rattle like yours did before it faded away to nothing at all.
I tried to believe that you were with me, but that was hard too.
I hope it was not hard for you to believe that I was with you. I was, right to your last breath.
I wanted to see you skipping ahead of me on the path for once. But even as I stared through a blur of tears I could only see your photos that I brought with me.
Those photos, I left in the summit cairn, beneath the topmost stone.
I drank a toast to you in good malt and poured a libation, wetting the stones.
Perhaps my letter to you written on the back is now illegible. None of this will last the winter, I guess.
I dedicated my day to you, and my walk, a belated present for a birthday you will never see.
Sometimes I forgot all about you — when the climbing was hard, or when my way was not clear. Was this the same for you too, as you lay dying?
But each time I remembered why I was there it brought fresh tears.
A mountain is a good place to cry because it's easy to be alone.
But that seems strange, as it was my aloneness that made me want to cry, that brought me here today at all.
You would have liked the day, though probably not my route: up Striding Edge to Hellvellyn, south along the ridge and down to Grisedale Hause, then up again over Fairfield and St. Sunday Crag, and finally back down to Glenridding.
It would have been too far for you, alive. But nothing is too far for you now.
Now I have only myself to consider — a liberation? It feels a curse.
Given license, I want only compromise.
I sometimes used to yearn for solitude, but now all I want is your company.
I used to want to take you up mountains because I loved them, and I was sure you would too.
Now I feel that I must climb mountains for you, when you can no longer care.
Is this selfishness or true dedication? Or just unfinished business?
I decided on the walk that this would be your first annual memorial mountain walk.
Will the series end only when I die too, or merely when your loss stops hurting? Would I want that day to come at all?
I wonder about leaving your pictures at the summit... it feels a bit like an earlier metaphor — that we climbed together to your pass but I came back down alone.
Except, this time, I climbed alone too, grieving most of the way.
But maybe, just maybe, I left a little bit of you, and a little bit of my grief, there in the summit cairn.
And I wonder: how much of you must I leave behind, before I begin to live my own life again?
There was really no comparison, but I made some anyway.
It was hard and tiring work, but not so hard as dying.
My hands grew cold at times, but not so cold as yours did at the end.
My breathing changed. But it did not fade and rattle like yours did before it faded away to nothing at all.
I tried to believe that you were with me, but that was hard too.
I hope it was not hard for you to believe that I was with you. I was, right to your last breath.
I wanted to see you skipping ahead of me on the path for once. But even as I stared through a blur of tears I could only see your photos that I brought with me.
Those photos, I left in the summit cairn, beneath the topmost stone.
I drank a toast to you in good malt and poured a libation, wetting the stones.
Perhaps my letter to you written on the back is now illegible. None of this will last the winter, I guess.
I dedicated my day to you, and my walk, a belated present for a birthday you will never see.
Sometimes I forgot all about you — when the climbing was hard, or when my way was not clear. Was this the same for you too, as you lay dying?
But each time I remembered why I was there it brought fresh tears.
A mountain is a good place to cry because it's easy to be alone.
But that seems strange, as it was my aloneness that made me want to cry, that brought me here today at all.
You would have liked the day, though probably not my route: up Striding Edge to Hellvellyn, south along the ridge and down to Grisedale Hause, then up again over Fairfield and St. Sunday Crag, and finally back down to Glenridding.
It would have been too far for you, alive. But nothing is too far for you now.
Now I have only myself to consider — a liberation? It feels a curse.
Given license, I want only compromise.
I sometimes used to yearn for solitude, but now all I want is your company.
I used to want to take you up mountains because I loved them, and I was sure you would too.
Now I feel that I must climb mountains for you, when you can no longer care.
Is this selfishness or true dedication? Or just unfinished business?
I decided on the walk that this would be your first annual memorial mountain walk.
Will the series end only when I die too, or merely when your loss stops hurting? Would I want that day to come at all?
I wonder about leaving your pictures at the summit... it feels a bit like an earlier metaphor — that we climbed together to your pass but I came back down alone.
Except, this time, I climbed alone too, grieving most of the way.
But maybe, just maybe, I left a little bit of you, and a little bit of my grief, there in the summit cairn.
And I wonder: how much of you must I leave behind, before I begin to live my own life again?
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