On Remembering That I Used to Climb

The call of the wall,

periodical, methodical ascent with intent.

Route schematic;

left-foot, right-hand,

right-foot, left-hand,

leap and swing,

match and detach and on to the next.

Choosing, falling, grooving and improving.

Next day, wrists of clay,

crumbled and stiffened,

once agile, now fragile

to any of the many daily demands on the hands.

The habit was leaving on a wind of healing,

fraught and caught and taken away,

to be perennially a memory,

a delight consumed by the violent bite of history.