Interlude: The Mind of Hell

My ankles turn the mountain’s sweat
Back rippling one      inch two with each
Step I take wading up the mountain
The brown sweat flowing down the mountain

Color or every skin tone merged
Eddies as if it were a mind
Of meat deciding      not a mind
Of liquid on a mountain whether

Deciding at my ankles whether
To turn      return to the sky-beached light
At the summit of the boiling mountain
The peak where no shade falls or gathers

To climb against the effortless
Fall to the summit      from which light
Is wrenched like water from a stone
By heat that vaporizes rock

Conflicting the mind of Hell
That holds the rock together    where
The vapor and willed rock meet
White light emerges    from there Hell

Is lit that is not everywhere
Lit      or to flow around my ankles
Down to the ditch at the base of the mountain
In which the new sweat would not raise

The level of the sweat already
Flowing but only thicken for
A moment only     slow the sweat
Consumed by uncontested heat

A mind of liquid seeming almost
To turn from being      liquid not to
Flow down but climb      as with each step
I take I tear the living sweat

And with each step I take it screams
But I have lived a human life
And step and step      and watch the sweat
For the shimmer I make tearing it