The Climb

There is in this world no more a demoralizing

climb then that vast heap of rotting rock, ice.

It destroys people, not with noble counter-

strokes but by eroding a person's nerves, until

she is a staggering, whimpering maniac.  No single

or particular stretch of the mountain is especially

difficult.  Not even very interesting.  But she

climbed hour after hour up through shale, ragged rock,

through moraine, crevassed glacier, day after day,

with no sense of accomplishment, no idea that the

summit was nearing.  Time and again the flash storms

that twist around the peaks pin the climber down

for who knows how long.  Maybe forever.  Still the

pile left from creation goes on, upward.