The Breathtaking Life

Some mountains slow much pain and trouble

To all that stretch up to the top;

All dusty cracks and rocky rubble,

Not a branch or twig or root to shop.

Your friends won’t come to visit you there,

And wind will chase the ones that try.

Just fools would cause their home despair,

And climb till making family cry.

But a light that shines from the highest point

May feign its place from past the clouds

And suggest a gift to us appoint

If for a time we shed our shrouds.

The light gets dim or eyesight weak

And legs feel used for useless work.

The birds will seem to mock and squeak

And devil ghosts make footholds quirk.

And we may stagger side to side

As vertigo wells up inside.

We’ll twist our minds to stem the tide,

All compass lost derailing stride.

The utmost troubling thought becomes

A wasted time upon this height

And we will yearn for cups of rum

And technical aids to reel in light.

But a glow may warm our weary souls

And make us reek of warning good.

Not chemicals our brain controls

Released by effort where wanting stood

to make us feel some better toward

Exploratory reach for the moon,

But slow surprise pulls interest forward;

The distance pulls like calls of the loon.

Sun makes the valley appear below

and clouds like magic carpets glide

over tiny roads and grass to mow

and lives and dreams in numbers wide.

And way above those hearts we sway

As if we’ve taken leave of home,

No longer having a part to play,

Forever in the clouds to roam.

We’ve found that light has tricked us tattered

To change forever our tainted sight.

How much those slanted roofs no mattered

So close to being lost last night.

How precious living land can look

From here where God must sit awhile

To contemplate the human book

We wrote for ourselves below this pile.

We understand what Moses found:

All Nature’s rules our wit abjured

till getting to this place unsound

where Death’s least slack, and comes unheard.

The light still beckons way up there

as if more knowledge, always present,

is marked for use with all its care,

and everlastingly efflorescent.

Frederick (Rick) Solari was raised in the South Shore town of Pembroke, Massachusetts, the only boy in a family of five children.  His creative spirit and skilled hands brought him to fine carpentry, prose, poetry and designing and patenting tools.

This poem is from his published book “Out of the Dust”,  Copyright © 2009 by the Author and shared by his sister Rita Burpee and friend Dr. Margaret Jones

These storied pieces that showcase Rick’s sensitive family and social nature; passion for the outdoors; and love of mountains, ocean, rivers, ponds, and forest.