Blessed
He led our son onto the ice-field
without an axe between them.
I picture them treading like drunken ants
bent under the summit, our son a step behind
as if his dad were Wenceslas, not a man
who'll feature on the late news,
as if his dad were Sherpa Tensing,
not Daedulus helping Icarus fly
across that wedding cake mountain,
blizzard giving way to dusk
on the endless glissade of the Col de Côte-Belle.
You wouldn’t even bounce.
Dare I believe they are blessed,
kit stowed in the refuge, rabbit on the hob?
Jenny Hockey is an anthropologist who retired from Sheffield University to write more poetry. After a New Poets Award from New Writing North, her collection, Going to bed with the moon, appeared in 2019. You can find her here: https://www.jennyhockeypoetry.co.uk/