When you climb a mountain
You leave the world behind
All your troubles left there on the ground
O sure they’ll be waiting for you
When you come back down
But maybe you’ll come down a better man
Climbing up the rising ground
A world comes into view
Which never can be seen from down below
An island out at sea
Shimmering in the sun
And drumlins where the sea runs in between
And climbing higher steeper tests
Demand your energy
Careful footing
Watching how you go
Until the crest comes close to you
And with it that panoramic view
The whole world out before you
Lovely so
And sitting down to take it in
So much to see it seems a sin
To gulp it all at once
This beauty seen
Identifying places known
Admiring all that God has sown
And thinking of what is or might have been
The air the sun the breeze on high
Refresh the spirit make us sigh
To think the world can be so beautiful
And yet our troubled soul within
Cannot escape the daily din
The world awaiting us to pour its fill
For life is not lived on mountaintops
But down among the trees and crops
On the level where human problems lie
But a daily trip to the mountain side
Those moments gazing far and wide
Give us the strength and wisdom for the day
So climb that mountain each new day
Relive once more the mountain’s way
And sit in silent reverie and smile
And ask the Lord to guide you now
In all the where and why and how
And from that hill you’ll walk the next new mile
Brian Fahy
23 August 2021
Erris Poetry 