I close my eyes to shed a tear,
I close my eyes to fall asleep,
I close my eyes to dream, but…
I close my eyes and see a mountain,
I close my eyes and see a corpse,
I close my eyes and see what I saw that day,
I close my eyes and see a policeman staring at me in the snow,
I close my eyes and see a stretcher disappearing into the distance, a rope as a tail,
I close my eyes and see a woman laid out by a wall,
I close my eyes and see a beautiful snowy cwm on a moonlit night,
I close my eyes and see a helicopter light up that cwm like a UFO,
I close my eyes and wish that I never saw this.
I close my eyes and shed a tear.
I close my eyes and fall asleep.
I close my eyes and dream.
Last night at the climbing wall I was handed a letter from a relative of one of the fatal incidents I have attended as part of the llanberis mountain rescue team. This short poem is a reflection of how I reacted to it.