Facing the music of desires you
Forgot what would become of you; blew it
Like the Iceman climbing in the clamor of a blizzard
On the Otztal Alp five thousand years ago.
Yearning was fuel; yet the white-out buried the climber,
His possessions, chalcolithic gear.
The rest—
What trade, what life, what promise he was keeping,
What valley of satisfaction he pressed on to reach—
Puzzle us; we only see how he wanted to get
Somewhere, wanted but could not and gave back
Everything. No one knows where he was headed,
Why so forlorn, what it was all about;
Only that he, like you, had dealt with desire
As it was, a force of nature; and had lost.
—Stephen Sandy, “Force of Nature”
Art Credit Aksel Waldemar Johannessen
