Nobody’s Everest

by Christel Jeffs

NOBODY’S EVEREST

Base camp:

littered with tents, I thought

were empty.

Flags disconsolate,

waving without sound.

I wound myself tight with

insulated

isolation,

hands chapped from control,

tugging a mask in place.  

I crawled through blizzard 

after blizzard,

cursing at the cold around and within.

Death Valley echoes from

the mountain inside

to the mountain I climb. 

Yet, You approach my Himalayan terrain— 

unwind the layers of defense

from my extremities,

my tender organs.

You invite my gaze to the leaden veil

above which the witnesses wait,

and toward the stream of

technicolor sojourners

that cling to the crests up ahead.

Then I realize: 

I swallowed a lie

that this is 

nobody’s Everest 

but mine.

CHRISTEL JEFFS

Christel Jeffs is a writer, editor, and counselor. She lives in Northland, New Zealand, the place which serves as the backdrop for her debut novel, The Gumdigger’s Wife (2016).

Her poetry is featured in several Fast Fibres poetry anthologies, as well as the literary journals Calla Press, Vessels of Light, and The Way Back to Ourselves. She loves to help others rewrite their stories through her counseling work, while continuing to author her own, guided by the greatest Storyteller of all.