[Solan]

I met Andrew at a pub near Edinburgh. He told me he had written a poetry collection called Men on Ice. The images were about climbing in high altitude, and facing the wonders and dangers of it. But it was really about men's relationship to women in modern times. Quite a few years before we shared that moment of drink, he had met an experienced climber, Mal, in that same pub: "Andrew, you really know what climbing is about - to the bones! Your book Men on Ice was right on target." From what I understood, Andrew had mumbled something about it being about relationships, but whatever was said, was said through the bottom of quite a few pints of beer. When he woke the next morning, Mal was there, ready to hold him to his promise - of climbing in the Himalayas. Andrew had never climbed before. But he did go to the Himalayas, to climb an ill-reputed, treacherous mountain with glaciers that stayed the same for what could be no more than a few hours. He stayed at a lower camp, while the better climbers went for the summit - at the risk of their lives. He did of course write a book about this, and I have recently wondered if even that book - written about a true story as it was - was none the less a metaphor for men's relationships to women in modern times.

Here is a poem from an even later book, Order of the Day - about climbing, of course. I picked it somewhat at random, with the intent of showing Andrew's style and kind of metaphor.


The Winter Climbing
(for Marj)

It is late January and at last the snow.
I lie back dreaming about Glencoe
as fluent, hungry, dressed in red,
you climb up and over me. That passion
claimed the darkest, useless months
for risk and play. You rise
up on me, I rise through you ...

The shadowed face of Aonach Dudh
where Mal first took me climbing
and as we clanked exhausted, happy,
downwards through the dark, I asked
"What route was that?" "Call it
what you want - it's new."

You reach the top and exit out;
from way above, your cry comes down.
The rope pulls tight. What shall we call
this new thing we're about?
These days we live in taking
care and chances. Why name it?
My heart is in my mouth as I shout Climbing ...

---

Svein Olav

[This message has been edited by Solan (edited October 08, 2001).]