Words Unspoken/Hands Unseen
By: Dick Altman
When we climb together the steep –
and I struggle to keep up – I see a side
of you that – by your presence alone –
goads me – spurs me to push on –
beyond any measure of myself alone –
How easy you make it look – wearing
nothing but sandals – How sure your feet
secure the terrain – while I stumble
over scree – eyes glued to blades
of broken rock – to spiny cactus arms
eager to reach out and grab mine –
to twisted stairs of granite I wrestle
with – more than mount – You could
let me lead – No – I say – I need you
to helm – to show how it’s done –
despite fear – to instill belief that I –
without your wings to fly up mountains –
can – with caution – crawl – teeter –
piston slowly – one leg in front
of the other – upward – before I lose
sight of you around the next bend –
Yet when I do – you wait – undaunted –
with a look that drives me to you –
The distance – as always – grows
between us – until I catch up –
and our dance begins again – until
we meet on the crest – Few know how
you subdue peaks reaching for the clouds –
How the courage you imbue lofts me
to the sky – How the figure in front of me
extends her invisible hand – to pull me up
the last unyielding step – where together
we embrace – to share for a moment –
our top of the world
Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Ca-thexis, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, New Verse News, Wingless Dreamer, Sky Island Journal and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry, to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.