Crushed By A Tumbling Sherpa Poem by Noah Smits

I was smarter last year,
more productive, more insightful,
less hesitant to act,
more determined—such was I.
It took me some time just to realize:
someone shut off all my burners.
Boiling ardor had gone placid.
Neutral now: what once was acid.

I'd built mountains, proud and cherished.
At their base I made my camps.
To the rhythms of the highlands
I would rest, content and glad.
One day I set out to climb them,
planned a supper for the peak.
I could answer any question;
I could patch up any leak.

The results are in.
The audit of my mind has no tables,
no bottom line,
meager structure altogether.
Rice in a crucible—
Ten seconds of static—
A corpse at altitude,
crushed by a tumbling sherpa.

Lovely words, divine diction,
what are you now?
Frozen trinkets in a sack
that rustles like a winter coat.
I am wiser for their loss.
My reincarnated self
hunkers down at sea-level
where poets refuse to tread.