The Approval Process

I am owed this view. Those few 
rough and jagged peaks, small
in the background, stage left. This 
circular pool of reflected sky, dirtied 
in water and somehow made iron-red murk
and algae-green livid without brown, somehow
remaining a lake (with one mountain's peak 
on tip-toe! Sticking its head in on a hot day).
A hot day so high up there's snow below us
now. As if to incomplete the scene's stark
and spare austerity: a scrubby stubble
of random plants at this height, struggling
to look respectable despite the disreputable 
aspect. Nothing this high could thrive

but in this moment, I do. And you. 
I am owed this view, having taken 
all the long tramp and toil to earn 
it. And you, for dragooning me up 
to this death-hike, are perhaps 
owed something too.