For
some a mountain, say an Everest or a Kilimanjaro,
exists
to be conquered, the kind of obvious big thing
my
father, that valley dweller, would casually diminish.
What’s
wrong with life in the lowlands, he’d say,
why
not just look up, enjoy imagining
how
you’d feel at the top? And interesting people,
if
you need them, are everywhere. They can be found
in
a glade or a clearing, even in a suburb.
My
father is dead; he only has the words I remember
and
choose to give him.
If
I were to say my need to define myself
involves
breathing air not many have taken in,
and
the excitement of a little danger, I’d hear him say
Do
some good work, mow the lawn, carry wood
from
the woodpile. Don’t confuse the dangerous
with
the heroic.
But
the truth is I’d like to be a mountainizer,
someone
who earns the pleasure of his reputation.
When
it comes to women, I desire them married
to
their own sense of accomplishment, each of us
going
our own way, coming together when we can.
Not
enough, he says. If they lack generosity
they
take back what they give. If they have it
they
remind you, ever so gently, that a man
who
climbs mountains leaves behind his beloved.
It
is impossible to win arguments with the dead.
Everywhere
you go there’s danger of being a no one,
my
father insists. Is he changing his position,
or
is that willful me changing it for my sake?
The
grave was always his destination, the modesty
of
his ambition obscured now by lichen and moss.
Comes
the mountain before the reputation, I say.
Comes
the unsure footing, the likely fall, he says.