Race to The Top
How we got here is anybody's guess.
Sure, you were impressed with the rest:
the skyscrapers, the towers, the bridges,
but it was the mountain you wanted most.
Lifts became a bore, escalators a chore,
if I offered you a piggy-back up the stairs
you would have offered a squeal.
No, it needed to be your calloused hands
on hard rock, the coarse soles of your feet
clasping crannies in the face of a stone god.
At the base, we gazed up. Half way up,
we gazed down. At the top, we gazed out
and wondered why. So let us jump without parachutes,
fall without rope, dive without a chance;
let us hold hands all the way down and race to the start.
Luigi Coppola is a teacher, poet, first generation immigrant and avid drinker of rum and coke who has been shortlisted for Bridport Prizes, longlisted for Ledbury and National Poetry Competitions and published in Worple Press’ anthology The Tree Line, Acumen, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Iota, Magma, Rattle and The Rialto. You can find him here: www.LuigiCoppolaPoetry.blogspot.co.uk.