Lonely She

Lonely She

Lonely, she climbs a mountain:
At the top, in mirror blue air,
Her cloud-white breath disappears—
She is nothing and does not care.

The neighboring mountains shrug,
Old men playing solitaire;
On her bare peak a single shrub
Shrivels in the sun’s cold glare.

The view of empyrean expands
Below the same sky everywhere:
She is nothing and nobody—
A spirit freed that does not care.

Like her trailing breath, she drifts
Far from the joys of despair
Until, too late, she thins
And disappears up there.

~Lionel Willis