Bleaberry Fell

I have returned to the Lakes

        and I have climbed to the top of Walla Crag

and now—Right Now!—in rising wind—

        the summit of Bleaberry Fell is before me!


I don’t know how it happened—
        Those claiming responsibility
must send me their sacred books
that I can bless them, sincerely
        with a laugh and a shrug—
like an average man

The Suspect I suspect is Luck—
No wars in my life or place
no bodies lying in the street
No staggering in agony
            not killed with a shovel when I fall
none of these human wrenchings
that are more a world of misery
                than a world of bitterness

The Suspect I suspect is Luck—
Or—have I been given this moment
not for anything I did (for I did little)
but for what I didn’t do?
I couldn’t live without desire,
        but I lived without greed
These days I take nothing for myself, except myself
and so receive this treeless hill
        and with gratitude enfold
                the unruly wind in my arms

Surely it’s a matter of chance and luck—
Or—perhaps it’s the longevity of my English aunties
The world was not always as kind to them
as they were to the world
but the purity of their sympathies
                couldn’t be done without
and so the years were continuously awarded and stacked upon them

The lakes walk downhill when I walk up!

            I had to grow old to learn my bitterness was preposterous

I have chin-strapped my hat or it would be sailing to Carlile!

            The stones—make perfect steps—up Bleaberry Fell—

If the wind lifts and casts me down this slope

            I will not be bitter


Oh, I would say Luck is the prime Suspect—
And yet there is the strangest feeling
that I have been bearing toward this spot all my life
and the disappointments that fell upon me
and therefore could not help but fall on others
were always written, albeit
as an engraved stone
        whose name has been
                erased by time and weather

    O silly Coleridgean delirious with the horned moon!

            O fierce, staggering wind!

O Walla Crag below and summit of Bleaberry Fell before me!

            O Derwent Water! O Crummock Water!

I sit on the stones, gather in my knees

And now I bow my head—

            The wind, the wind, the wind, the wind, the Wind!