Sometimes a Man

Sometimes a man stands up during supper

and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking.

“Improvident and reckless,” we exclaimed, “the man must be,”

who stands, the crux left of the watershed,

near you, taller than the grass.

Out through the fields and the woods and over the walls I have wended.

I have climbed the hills of view and looked at the world, and descended.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

that spills the upper boulders in the sun

and makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

A narrow girdle of rough stones and crags,

a rude and unnatural causeway

underneath the coppice and heath

and the thin anemones,

too fair either to be divided from the place on which it grew

or to be left alone to its own beauty.

Ears poise before decision, scenting danger.

We all fall. This hand here is falling.

And look at the other one. It’s in them all.

And yet there is One who holds up this falling, hands infinitely calm.

Sometimes a man stands up during supper

and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,

and yet the menace of the years

finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

– Rilke, Wadsworth, Auden, Frost, Kipling, Henley

Published on Dec 13, 2010
Filed under: Climbing,Outdoors,Personal Work,Photography
Tags: bouldering, chattanooga, climbing, Conrad Anker, daniel woods, film, jimmy webb, mamiya, medium format, photography, poetry, portraits, triple crown, writing | 3 Responses