After Kociusko

AFTER KOSCIUSKO


In reblacking, as a bellows-fire Smith,
I'll read the anneal of a silver orb of rising
As the dead moon east overflows the granite
Cresting the wild waves of Kosciusko

For the sun, our sun, has peached overripe
In its setting on the neglected, the rotten West
A bruise of purple on its back, its beaten face
Fallen to like a cooling star going under.

East is our path down, a Snowy River of repute
Will invigorate our feet with the blessed ice,
Flown to the far east, sharp as the early juice
Melts into frozen flesh to heal freeze-pured wounds

Below us, the resorts blink a self-generated light
Like a detachment of too-bright disbelief, Charlotte Plains
Is one of the enclaves of the bruise, gaily skulling
Down the cock's-tail for it's mock as triple crow.

The several alpine peaks are Smith's ancestors,
Silhouettes of faithfulness against the set of sky,
Weeping ice tears as they embrace the coldness
of the waste, the waste where death is pure

The shock! Night air braces Smith's cheeks,
Inner fire flares to like spirit to meet
The chill, a glow burns out as the oxygen crosses
His forge of breath from the highest pass

Tonight he will sleep at the top of the Pass,
Palpable freeze drives, the urge to howl is there,
He will hear the midnight dingoes in the too bright moon
Wowling the east full with pain and high loneliness

Streams will crystallise in the night, the morning
Will bring icelight on wild chandeliers, and dawn come
In air thin as his last sung breath, but the slim melting
of the ice begins a flow toward a stream that roars.

* * *

First draught 15th May 1995 Mount Kosciusko