Mount Kilimanjaro

 

Written for Poetic Bloomings prompt: Where the rubber meets the road

You didn’t tell me,

Though I came right away

When you told me

That they would take us

To the summit of

Mount Kilimanjaro

We climb away

Past the shadows

Flickering with wildebeest

And skulking hyena

Away from their whimpering

Childish cries

Above the moody landscape

Of burnt grass and bamboo slopes

Golden-red in the pining sun

Past the stench of rotting carcasses

To the coveted top

Of Mount Kilimanjaro

How I wanted to see it

That white square

Transforming to a coral sea

As the sun sets

Above a layered landscape

Of muted blue and green

You told me once

That something foreign

Occupied the space in you

Once filled with life

…but you didn’t tell me

You came up here

To Mount Kilimanjaro

To die

Janet

I was stunned the first time I read Hemingway’s

The Snow’s of Kilimanjaro.