Handbook for Explorers 9

Each foot's a mile, each minute a day;
In each harsh breath you feel and hear shingle
Heaving up the shore; at each crest you stay
A while, look back to see nothing at all
But mist close in around you, like a valve
You've come through; each crest a peak, peak a crest
Above it. And above that the sky's black cave
Spewing from its mouth long skeins of mist.
Best not to think much about getting there
Just to keep climbing, your mind empty,
Expecting no reward but the joy and rush of fear
As you get closer to the ever widening sky.
Then at the true summit, you stop at last
Lost in the clouds till, curtains drawn apart,
You see, as though in the future of the past,
A climpse of light and somewhere else to start.