Releasing the Sherpas

The last two sherpas were the strongest,

faithful companions, their faces wind-peeled,

streaked with soot and glacier-light on the snowfield

below the summit where we stopped to rest.

The first was my body, snug in its cap of lynx-

fur, smelling of yak butter and fine mineral dirt,

agile, impetuous, broad-shouldered,

alive to the frozen bite of oxygen in the larynx.

The second was my intellect, dour and thirsty,

furrowing its fox-like brow, my calculating brain

searching for some cairn or chasm to explain

my decision to send them back without me.

Looking down from the next, ax-cleft serac

I saw them turn and dwindle and felt unafraid.

Blind as a diamond, sun-pure and rarefied,

whatever I was then, there was no turning back.