| | Base Camp by Tom Healy How much oxygen
to ask a question,
to rattle a crack-lipped
whisper,
a one-word lie?
Other animals exist
in an endless present--
ice and light,
speed or crawl, waves
of whatever is this and now.
Of course there's us--
the only breathing bodies
free enough not
to show up to ourselves,
for whom, if we can
summon strength,
being anywhere
is always in doubt.
Why? Why bother?
Because what is there?
With everything
our bodies know,
strong or broken,
we never have the luxury
of making ourselves simple.
Everywhere is always
uneasy, an altitude
of sudden storms, weak
footholds, frostbite, crevasse,
black and blue terrain. |
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| Copyright © 2013 by Tom Healy. Used with permission of the author. |
About this Poem: "I wrote this poem last year, trekking for a month in the Himalayas in the early spring, when the snow was melting at lower altitudes but a moody storm season had settled in. Early in the trek, I received news that the same flight from Kathmandu to base camp I had taken just two days before crashed on the mountain landing strip. Only a few passengers survived. I was startled into this poem by the mute severity of the mountains, the precariousness of life, how doubtful our foothold." Tom Healy |
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Tom Healy is the author of Animal Spirits (Monk Books, 2013) and What the Right Hand Knows (Four Way Books, 2009). He is the chairman of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board and a writing professor at The New School. He lives in New York City. |
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