Pantoum for the Free Climber's Girlfriend
By Elizabeth Sylvia
After watching the documentary Free Solo I keep thinking of you measuring the walls, saying you’re allowed one question every day about furnishing the condo Alex has just bought, or when you asked him in the front seat of his van (saying you’re allowed one question every day) if you were someone worth not dying for or, when you asked him in the front seat of his van to rate his happiness, how blank he looked. If you were someone worth not dying for you would be someone more than just a girl to rate his happiness. How blank he looked remitting your devotion and your hope. You would be someone more than just a girl if you were loved by someone far out on the ledge, remitting your devotion and your hope with the reflective glow of his cold greatness. If you were loved by someone far out on the ledge, his hands would always hope for stone with the reflective glow of his own greatness before him on the mountain face. Alex’s hands will always hope for stone, the form that excellence must take for him; before him on the mountain face your passions can’t seem anything but trivial. The form that excellence must take for him makes people on the ground seem tiny specks, our passions can’t seem anything but trivial. Heights and solitude like that make people on the ground seem tiny specks. Don’t come to see yourself from heights and solitude like that as if your soul were no more than a dot. Don’t come to see yourself as little. Things you love as if your soul were no more than a dot are great things even in their commonness. As little things we love are requited, they become great things, even in their commonness: Those joys and cares tie us together. Requited, they become the solid rock to build a life upon, those joys and cares that tie us together, shared work, shared devotion. The solid rock to build a life upon isn’t furnishing the condo Alex has just bought, but shared work, shared devotion. I keep thinking of you measuring the wall.
Elizabeth Sylvia (she/her) is a writer of poems and other lists who lives with her family in Massachusetts, where she teaches high school English and coaches debate. Elizabeth’s work is upcoming or has recently appeared in Salamander, Pleiades, Soundings East, J Journal, RHINO, Main Street Rag, and a bunch of other wonderful journals. She is currently working on a verse investigation of the writer Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard.
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