A totally different slant on climbing from yesterday's version by Norman MacCaig.
R S Thomas, the Welsh cleric poet, sees it, rather, as a metaphorical exercising/exorcising of the spirit. His thoughts, dating to 1977, can be found in his Uncollected Poems, edited by Tony Brown and Jason Walford Davies (Bloodaxe, £9.95).
THE CLIMBER
Climbing mountains was climbing
himself. From the summit
he could look down and see below
the problems he had left behind.
Thoughts were like flowers on
the ledges, high up and far out,
the best needing to be plucked
dangerously and smelling of courage.
At night there was this mountain
above him, dark as the cave
of sleep he would enter and emerge
from tomorrow to resume his climbing.
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