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Poem

The Ascent of Mount Fuji

Michael Schaffner

Lost in the rain, no longer seeping out
but gushing from the mountainside, the sea
rising to meet then falling back, the sky
brightly enamelled cumulonimbus,
we walked all day as the summit withdrew
ever spectrally from our predictions.
Singly and in small groups the others left
for the lengthening trail to the landing.

I don’t know how the question gets raised or
how an answer erupts from a vista,
but still there’s this and then what you look for
later, lonely as a shop in a mall
with neither history nor a future.
It’s only the walk up you remember.