By Rhys Hughes
Prologue.
There are fourteen mountains
on the surface of the Earth
higher than eight-thousand metres
and recently it was found
by observers on the ground
they have all been sending postcards
to the Royal Geographical Society
but no one knows why…
Mount Everest.
You say I am the tallest but that’s not
quite true: I am just
more obviously tall than you
and everyone else you know.
There is a mountain under the sea,
Mauna Kea by name
who is rather taller than me, 10,200
metres high as a matter
of fact: it’s just a question of tact that
she doesn’t loudly dispute
my claim to fame (and yes,
she’s a lady). And on the planet Mars
stands Olympus Mons,
highest mountain in our solar-system.
K2.
I am not quite as lofty
as my brother
Mount Everest (see above)
but he’s a softy
when compared to me in terms
of difficulty of climb.
Mountaineers drop from fright
on my slopes as well
as from physical exhaustion.
This is a warning, just a friendly
caution. Don’t sleigh
on my white suede snows. You
can do anything but
sleigh off my white suede snows.
Kangchenjunga.
I invoke hunger in the bellies
of those who try
to get to my summit. A fellow
named Crowley tried it
back in 1905 and he survived
while others of his team
were avalanched into oblivion.
He was snacking
at the time in his tent on mints
and thus was born
his insistence that life is sweet.
Lhotse.
I am the least prominent
of the eight-thousanders
despite the awfully vertiginous
vertical relief of my
South and Northeast Faces.
I wouldn’t really mind
swapping places with one of my
sheerer fellows but I’m
reluctant to make the offer.
Should I stoop so low?
Makalu.
I look like a pyramid, they say,
but the comparison
offends me most painfully.
I am millions of years old,
the pyramids, a few thousand.
It should be the other way
around, visitors to Egypt ought to gasp
and cry: the pyramids look rather
like Makalu. Now that’s
the analogy that ought to apply.
Cho Oyu.
My name in Tibetan means
Turquoise Goddess
and although I am modest
I am pleased with the appellation.
It seems I am the easiest
of the eight-thousanders to climb
but I don’t regard that
as a disadvantage. Why be macho
in the clouds? If you love
Cho Oyu, she will be kind to you.
Climb me and you’ll return
like a human boomerang
for I have the lowest death-summit
ratio among the gang.
Dhaulagiri.
I dazzle the eyes with my gleaming
backside, and startle
the minds of those who slide down
my beauteous slopes.
I hope and pray for a climber today
to do something silly
such as roll down Dhaulagiri all the
way to the bottom
after the snapping of his ropes: yes,
to my shining base.
It’s not a race, as such, because there
can never be a winner,
just a mess like a yeti’s dog’s dinner.
Manaslu.
A serrated wall of ice hanging
on the horizon like a bandsaw
nailed to a door.
That is how I am described by
those who wish
to ride my teeth: climb up one
side and perch
on my summit and you’ll find
my mind is pure
enough for gentler metaphors.
I am not a tool, rarely the fool
who tries to fix
my own position in the scheme
of things. In the
valley below me snow leopards
prowl and growl
and so do you, softly, dreaming.
Nanga Parbat.
When rats desert a sinking ship
they expect it to really
sink, not merely plunge its prow
for a quick drink
and then right itself again. That
hurts, a betrayal
of the laws of disaster. And the
mice called climbers
who scurried
on my broad flanks when I sank
into the spray
of my own blown snows, crying
avalanche! surely
thought I had drowned for good
in that illusory sea.
But as you can see: I’m still here.
Annapurna.
Now we come to the real test.
I was the first eight-thousander
to be climbed.
Does that make me the easiest?
Well, no. In fact
I am the most dangerous of the
fourteen. My fatality
rate is twenty-five times as high
as that of Miss Cho Oyu
and my slopes are littered with
those who have
found their literal ever rest here.
Get it? My propensity for
making puns wasn’t mentioned
in Maurice Herzog’s
classic book about the first ascent
of me. I wonder why?
I took all his toes and most of his
fingers with the aid
of frostbite: a remarkable feat for
him, paid for with
both of his own astonishing feet.
Gasherbrum I.
I have a brother who you will meet
below, but in the meantime
you ought to know
that my eternal
snows glow
brightly
across the region that is my home,
and this is why
I am mystified as to
the origin of my nickname:
the Hidden Peak. It’s inaccurate
to my mind. Am I really
so hard to find?
Broad Peak.
My name is a physical descriptor
but my views
are broad too: I don’t care who or
what climbs me.
I welcome diversity.
On July 23rd, 2016, a Frenchman
by the name of
Antoine Girard piloted a paraglider
over my head.
That’s a type of lightweight plane,
but I didn’t complain.
I never lodge objections with God.
Gasherbrum II.
You have already met my brother a short
distance above.
He is above in height
as well as in his location in this poem. I
look up to him in
everything, true, but he isn’t what I want
to talk about today.
No, I wish to briefly mention the Duke of
the Abruzzi and
also a certain Vittorio Sella,
the former a brave aristocrat and intrepid
mountain explorer,
the latter the greatest photographer of high
peaks who ever held
a camera. Climbers wear trousers but their
breath comes in pants:
this pair arrived to reconnoitre me in 1909
and I was flattered,
at least to the greatest extent that any giant
is flattered by ants.
Shishapangma.
I was the last of the eight-thousanders
to be scaled, not because
I’m any harder to climb than I am to rhyme
but thanks to logistical
and political considerations. Less of that!
I wish to share with you
a little snippet that I find pleasant to think
about. When Tintin
was in Tibet, he travelled
with Captain Haddock towards me, looking
for a crashed plane. I
don’t recall either of them,
but I have been told their journey was true,
although they knew me
back then by my Sanskrit name, Gosainthan.
Epilogue.
Mountains rise and fall
like empires or supposedly solid walls.
Postcards are more
ephemeral than either,
especially when written in verse.
That’s the curse of time.
But the Royal Geographical Society
is never averse
to receiving them from
any interesting global feature that cares
to write a few lines.
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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