Naming a mountain.
North

THERE was a time I came from the north
Slow through the thick wet world
On approach, would see
It’s great hunched shoulders, reared
Against the wind, as the ground below fell
And the world disappeared

There was my beacon, tipped with
A man made broadsword, perched
At the highest point, placed,
When I was small, far, abroad
A great beacon tower to cast
Out the word, to every listening
Wireless blood in the land

South
Deep in the rivulet, ruts and trunks
Tracks, parks, people, life and land
All I wondered at, in mountains south
And discovered it enthralled
All a sudden happening
The oaks and gums parted, and there-
Was the beating organ, that towers
Over all
Breathless, I swiped to snare it,
In word or scrawl, yet when it revealed
Itself, all words were doggerel
Breathless, I left it, claiming its air yet humble
Hubris flown, and caring for all
And none at all

East

I met you east, infrequently
Passing from the eastern shore
Gliding over great bow of bridge
Wonder how none crashed at all

I snatched glances of you:
Almost leaning over the young town
Like an old man would ponder
With hands on thighs
At what this this thing growing
In his garden, was at all?

In time, I would stop and look
At the grey rust that fingered out in tendrils
Deep further, into the lush dark creep
Of a place I knew it shouldn’t be at all
We should have wept, but
You gave us rain.

West
Now, your are hidden, and peer around
Smaller cousins, I can’t see you, hear you
Yet recall, when I baled down from the west
Vertiginous, wondering, slow
Following the great bone ridges lead
To your sudden, muscular back door-

I admit, it took a couple of trips
To recognize you, from my snatchstolen glances
On that precipitous road, the one that leads
Us down into a city –
That gave you a name.
You wouldn’t care, I know this, thus
Name you nothing at all
A thing as nameless that English has taught me-

A mountain, yes that, and a timeless world
Before.