Ever climb Mt. Theilsen Ernie?

“Six times,” he wheezed,
from an
abrupt old man
kind of
certainty, and
then held up
one hand with fingers extended
and an upward thumb from the other
to only waist height,
then let them down in
an exhaustion of age,
looking off the precipice
of his front porch,
he said, “Last time I was 79.”