Another Recent Poem

The Alpine Loonies

They breathe only to conquer Europe’s heaven,
those spry souls, hungry with mad adventure
Picks on raw shoulders, lips all but vanished
Are they hostage to her beauty, or her gloating?
For all the reminders of past frozen tragedies,
pleas from burning arms and legs are ignored

Faint lines of silence, attached like convicts,
with a heaviness of feet, lightness of head
Princess Mont Blanc waves her ancient crown
Just how did she earn such blind devotion?
They can be delayed, stranded at the Midday
Needle, but only until the storm passes

Mothers know little about the Alpine Loonies
They would faint to see those sharp drops,
their babies on icy tightropes, fast melting
And do they beckon French or Italian angels?
The impossible infants are now unreachable,
only looking up, no chance of going back


© Copyright, 2009. Seamus Kearney. The Alpine Loonies (a poem about Mont Blanc)