The Poet’s Journey

You sit all night upon a mountain top

To become either mad, or a poet,

But return to daily life much the same,

Hungry, and confused, but trying to speak

Of the night and the mountain and your soul.

You steadfastly research crazy mountains

A place for blows or visions is required,

A place of mystical transformation.

You sit all night on a new mountain top,

Come back speaking of the star jewelled sky,

Space between galaxies, eternity,

But the words are always inadequate.

You flirt with cliché and depression

In rhyming couplets you learn to despise.

Neither a poet, nor properly mad,

All you can do is keep climbing mountains,

And come back without the words to explain,

To people who have never mountain sat,

Whose eyes glaze over at your description.

You seek the company of poets,

Of lunatics bent on chasing the moon,

Deranged idealists and small children

Who want to hear all about your journey,

And for all your relentless sanity

Declare you to be one of their odd tribe.

Each night you all sit on mountain tops

Dreaming the way to distant pinnacles

Until your returning empty handed

Becomes a different kind of meaning.