Fuji, Rainier, now to Africa’s pinnacle
she followed, behind a parade of sycophants  
marching, single file behind his greatness  

few made ascents with him  
she only Fuji, on a windless day  
though others made the trek up Rainer,
surviving a blizzard that hit halfway
down  

she told her lover
his faithful must have thought his presence
imbued them with immortality  
which he seemed to possess    

maybe it did, the lover said  
seven decades and one, still *******
old mountains and young women  
and she was still there, despite
the doctors’ bleak sentence    

she was painting, moving
while she still could, a water color
of Rainier in mist, hanging in some
haunted hall in his home

now a pale pastel of Kilimanjaro
for which he would spend a fortune, to hang  
somewhere he would not spend a minute    

when her extended contract expired  
she would be ashes scattered in Big Sur  
and he would still be climbing higher  
breathing heaven’s ether, a color
she never captured  

but her signature
would be on overpriced art  
which from the start, he commissioned
to keep her from leaving without
having seen rarefied air