Siobhan Campbell

Climb
 
the mountainy men toward the top
are tiny on the outcrop
can they see us wave
from our nice café
where we wait for their pride

do they know that we watched
a bad tempered cloud threaten
to squall and haul them soggy and shaky
down early until

some other hill took the damp
and they carried on up with their ropes
harnesses, hope and flasks
to the top or nearly

where they are now, they could touch it
a ridge that’s measured in inches
and even sixteenths matter when you
gauge a mountain for climbing

though not to us, as we sip
our hot chocolate, glancing up
now and then to make sure
we’re not needed
 
 
 
 
 
Siobhan Campbell’s latest collection is Cross-Talk from Seren Books – ‘set in the wake of the turbulent Irish peace process’ Poetry. Previous collections include The Permanent Wave (Blackstaff Press) and That Water Speaks in Tongues. Awards include prizes in the National and Troubadour International competitions. Siobhan is on faculty Kingston University London but currently lives in Washington DC, specialising in the low-residency MFA Creative Writing and advanced poetry workshops.