Sandstone Heights

            Sandstone Heights

(on climbing Drábské Světničky in Český Ráj)

of course, the rule without debate

atop a canopy of sandstone obelisks

and jutties—none manmade, if all

acclaimed by gradual stampede—is

to stay at least a meter from the edge.

‘Moirai,’ the kids could groan, and

damn straight down they’d be right;

a Greek sense of fate hasn’t borne

its weight and prayertime this night

is on some toehold of a political ledge

instead of the gratitude that a fall

hasn’t come to us yet. We climb and

descend and hoover each ancient,

carved-out enclave by passing hand

and foot and face to the lofty redoubt.

A cistern three thousand years old

and strong-lipped with stone blocks

adds light to my sense of the scene:

the dwellers chipped into the rocks

for their caverns, then journeyed out

to build from the earth they freed.

In this case a cistern: drilling again,

yet needing a blueprint to pinhold

the plan, cinders to anchor that end.

Obelisks now could rise up to the sky.

Of course, without the Babel myth,

such measures only have the height

to fear, their rules without debate.

Like lemmings we scurry recondite,

if any caver nowadays questions why