i read that, very long ago
(like, in the start-anthropocene)
it was a fad among the rich
to climb the tallest peak on earth
a mountain sacred to her folk
though to the climbers, not so much

they'd pay what would for normal homes
be easily a year of wage
and by the hundreds form a queue
to climb into the cold Death Zone
where many millionaires would die
from suffocation, cold, or fall
cuz mostly, they weren't mountaineers,
and only had more cash than sense

in homage to the local ways,
they asked permission from the peak
before embarking on their climb
and look at that! an early case
anthropocenic westerners
who learned to ask before they take

but i can't help but be surprised
the mountain, strewn with trash and shit
and cast-off corpses of the rich
and bloody goretex in the snow
and canisters of oxygen
and with her people poorly paid?
that she would say yes to these guys?
and let more orthodontists up?

or, after paying 60k,
did they refuse to take a "no"?