Climbing the Wall

To reach the bell, I begin navigating kinder-colored plastic protrusions, reaching, grasping, heaving, pulling up, pushing off misshapen blocks, gravity's fool fighting my pull, my own weakness of muscle and will, hands curled, crab clawed and aching to gain each inch, feet scrabbling, straining to stick to the stucco, to grip-- but I slip, belay my way down to the ground. This trick of undoing: I, Spiderman, nimble, sticky-handed, a fact of my being, superpowered (rasping like an old engine) up the wall by inches and grimaces. But my slippery foe, Old Doubt, wins out, and I let loose the false grasp and lose the wall, and again--again!--I fall. Should I tell how I prevailed, tolled my triumph at the top? Or how I failed and pathetically dropped? Old Robert had it right: reach, grasp (gasp, drop).