Poetry 2014 Longlist, Judith Narayan Vaddi

Each Mountain

Each mountain I climb
The steps I take
Measured, some
Through harried breath
Are but the confirmed
Of choices defined.

Each step I plant
Through passages inclined
Each tread, every stride
A moment that declares,
This, the all and one
One and all
This journey mine.

Look upward, hold fast
Steady heart
Beat firm though loud,
And know this
This mount too
Shall be conquered
Seized, one day
Be mine.

Sometimes I fall
I stumble; and tired
Limbs and aching hearts
Doth whisper, Rest
Desist, pause a while

Sometimes the chasms
Deep, doth beckon
Dark, the valleys bleak
That pauses brief
Yet cloying invites.

Not yet, I murmur
Not now, not ever
The pink and white bobbing
A fairer pitch do deliver.

And so I climb, each
day, each moment
Some slow, others
Slower still;
And yet I climb
Knowing that this
Brings victory, peace
Tranquillity divine.