Odd O'blography

How Up is High?

In yesterday's post, I presented a perspective that shows Mt. Chimborazo in Ecuador as the highest peak in the world. Robert Waltz responded with another perspective that favors Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Mauna Kea is only 13,800 feet above sea level but presents the most challenging climb in the world with a total height of 30,610 ft from its underwater base to its icy peak. But who could even dream of such a climb?

Upscale

Oh! I have sliced through surface bonds of sea
And met the sky on silver-scaled fin;
Gazing up to snowcapped heights above me
Through misting cloud where fish has never been.
Long I dreamed this ecstasy of motion
Mountain's root begets imperative idea;
Fly from too familiar depths of ocean
And joyful soar 'round slopes of Mauna Kea.

Note ▼

a respectful homage to High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr.


https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/157986/high-flight-627d3cfb1e9b7