On Climbing Mt. McKinley
from the Second Verse Collection (Barbara McKinley)
The tape I made,
my inner voice,
became my companion.
. . . An important part of my continuing.
Put your foot here . . . keep yourself moving . . .
Don’t sit down . . . Keep yourself going . . .
Step by step,
I take the mountain.
I relax.
I make myself ready.
Always alert.
I watch. I wait.
I know when the storm will blow
and work as a team,
with my voice,
toward the goal.
When I reach the summit,
once on the summit,
I feel—not joy.
Not a jumping-up-and-down-feeling,
but a quiet peace and calm.
A place of no color.
No wind. Air.Blankk and silent.
On returning, once more
To the green and color.
Extremely felt and
observed.
Air pushes against my movements.
I resist. I move through air as a
vessel moves in water.
And I hear sounds
other than the voice
in my head and
the wind.
In the end, the feat wasn’t
technically so challenging
or difficult,
as a matter of willpower.
And on returning, I work to keep
the summit ever ahead.
Never finished.
. . . keeping the silence within
while moving midst
color, pressure, and sound.
I wrote this poem from listening to a climber describe how he managed to complete his goal of climbing Mt. McKinley. I listened intently since I had been aware of my name, McKinley, all of my life and felt it had significance. Interestingly, not long after hearing the interview of this mountaineer, the mountain in Alaska was officially renamed by the federal government as Denali, meaning the “high one,” named long ago by the Koyukon, the people of Alaska who settled in the interior area north of the mountain.
Our goals may change or take on different names, but the drive remains
