I have begun to narrow down desire.
As though tracing a river to its source
I climb, charting the change higher and higher
from placid meander to the turbulent course
where it began. I have loved much, not well,
collecting worlds to carry on my back.
What shall I leave? The spirits that compel
this climb demand a spare and steady pack.
Leave beauty, wonder. They are everywhere.
Leave hope, and drink from the relentless stream.
Leave knowledge, learn trust in the nimble air
until, suspended by a slender dream,
you seek only to climb, and not to know
where you came from, where you have to go.

*****

Barbara Loots writes: “Climbing is one of my earliest successful sonnets. Over the decades, I have turned to it again and again as life bears out its wisdom.”

After decades of publishing her poems, Barbara Loots has laurels to rest on, but keeps climbing. The recent gathering at Poetry by the Sea in Connecticut inspired fresh enthusiasm. Residing in Kansas City, Missouri, Barbara and her husband Bill Dickinson are pleased to welcome into the household a charming tuxedo kitty named Miss Jane Austen, in honor of the 250th birthday year of that immortal. She has new work coming in The Lyric, in the anthology The Shining Years II, and elsewhere. She serves as the Review editor for Light Poetry Magazine.

Photo: “Himalayian Stream of Life” by Lenny K Photography is licensed under CC BY 2.0.