Waiting
Ascending Kilimanjuro from air so painfully thin,
I hack out my breath in sharp splinters of ice,
my teeth a constant chattering.
As I gaze up to the starlit sky,
the beam of my miner's lamp
skitters across the icy expanse.
"Will I make it," I hear myself sigh.
"Not far now," are the words of my guide.
Though little comfort they bring
as my marrow ischilled and sliced
by the blade of the merciless wind.
"Just one step at a time," I barely hear him say.
Kimba, my guide now for several days
but who's counting, my brain is numb.
Since midnight I've stumbled in errie blackness
wishing for dawn to come.
But victory is close at hand;
at sunrise, on the roof of the world I'll stand.
Great Japan
