A Phenomenology of Wilderness

Those peaks, far off from my aching heart
So distant, so long as empty space is the start
of my encounter

My fingers they grab and claw at thin air
My lungs, so thin, save the breath of despair
In spaces, in distances I falter

My hands as close as my arms can reach
My voice, it dies on the winds that I beseech
For news from mountain's altar

But if I perceive, feel with my chest
My soul my eye can now divest
The view of its vacuum rampart

It is then, yes, that my soul does see
Peaks in my chest, sharp upheaval in me
Truly my flesh a-faulting

What lifts them up is what parts my ribs
What wears them down fills my lungs, warm winds
Exciting my lips to new psalter

I actually included this poem in a grad seminar, back in the day. The seminar title was "Challenges to Authoritarian Science". As exciting as the title sounds, at that time many of the challenges themselves were logical positivist variations on the theme. 

Several of us students had a thing for trying to overcome the logical positivist spirit of the day, while still aiming for passing grades, of course. Poetry seemed a good bet for saying FU to the man, in every way.

I don't know what this poem achieved, except that, thirty years later, it still expresses very succinctly what I take to be the strategy for overcoming materialist reductionism.