(i)
It's no use
the legs aren't up to it anymore
and he's barely an eighth of the way up the mountain
when some kindly climbers
opt to help him down.
Confused and broken of spirit
he is returned to the home
and time stops passing once more.
(ii)
The fog whose descent
has sent him north
has one last trick to play:
though he reaches the top,
through bog and heather
and bone-weary exhaustion,
it is the wrong mountain.
He has misremembered the name
and all he finds at the hard-won cairn
is a gentle slope down the other side
and a group of picnickers
who eye him with sympathy.
(iii)
A circle which was opened
when he was fourteen;
when a frozen night in a frozen tent
was swept aside
by a breathless climb
to a dazzling white peak -
Liathach -
and a view over crashing cliffs
into the wild blue
bore the thought,
"This, when the time comes,
is where I will end it!" -
is closed.
And the body joins
the half-flown soul
in the mist-swallowed distance
and beyond.