I realise/realize thiis is not a forum for poetry - but I've been away for a bit, without a reliable link up in Cradle Mountain, and made a few observations in my eye torn awe warped view of the sheer beauty of this place:

Naming a mountain. Cradle Mountain April 2018

“The Diners”

Rain wracked restaurant
Buffet slowed, bloating yet buoyant
After coffee, waiting, waiting
For the mountain to clear
And cool, cold to switch with warm

We wait, welded to our residence
For that peak to reveal itself,
Fully contented.

“In the Weindorfer Forest”
Tides of wind are regally swinging
King Billy pines, and nuzzling all
The indescribable things
Only the lens of eye to capture real beauty
Only the thin drum ear to hear
The tick of accumulated mist
On to forest floor
Only the nose to breathe in the
Slow seeped sap
And only to the mind to run
For where all this wonder might
Be tapped
Or what strangeness of place
This green heaven might trap.
“Platform walker”
Benched I sat amongst skinks,
Limbs and soothe wind
The damp track thud now ceased
And all humanity slightly decreased
Soft, suffused sky wrens say:
“keep on walking,
On your way”

“At Crater Lake”
Golden ripples
Turning copper
Threading water
Kneading shore
Slowly lapping
Tireless tapping
At the Crater
Boathouse door.

“Vertigo at Marion’s Lookout”
We found a spot
In soft bleached sun rocks
Just down from the summit
There: a glitter lake girded
By belts of trees
The wind ceased, and took my fears away
Though stark, and bold, sheer shot through
My very falling notion, that the wind may take me
Like history, to the debris of that lush below.
Ultra-vivid in blur, I felt the mountain
On my feet now, white hard dolerite
Rocks, feet, sweat boot socks
Baking knees in the morning sun
A yawn above
Great gulf below
Containing the crystal and gold
Shimmer water
The wind pushed out polished showers
Of sparklers, water bound fireworks
In ripples seen a mile above
I, being no eyrie keeper,
Long for the slow hush of below
Water valley, bottom serenity
The near quiet earth, from our
Rock rugged seat, we see
Again: the show of a thousand ripple
Shards through Lake Mountain air-

I love this vantage point, yet I long to be
Down there.

“Currawong by the overlook (Wombat Lake)”

Eyes, the colour of Autumnal Fagus*
Timid, yet curious
He dances for us
Before dipping in
To a bright lit tree
To peck at bugs
In his handsome glosscoat
Ancient, Jurassic frame
Gives us his old look,
Being the odd pair
That stopped to look,
Then turns his black knife beak up
And carries on.

He is the stately leading hand,
In shimmer cloak, ancient robed
We sense we are invisible, free
From that magnificent stare
But, that eye in black,
Eye of hawk,
Is watching me.

“Lilla Lake drinking”
I drank the water
From Lilla Lake
Sluiced through
Blast hard rocks,
It had a copper hue
A certain rustic smell
And, with luck,
No possum poo.

“At Pencil Pine Creek”
The wind told me to stop and see
All the flourishing revelry
The water birds over dolerite
Who cool the mind in green pools below
A creek above, emerald moss,
And the slow liverworts around the ferns
Tangles of lichen mottled branches
Lit by the canopies soft glow
Then a quiet is broken, by the Currawong’s
Rusty steel call.

“Enchanted”

By waters furious roaring mind,
It fell to glass smooth, curled by eddies
It fell to calmer depths and flows,
Then took me up the valley
Where King Billy rose, and rules
All moss rich deep in den,
And even the wind is stoppered
Where profound in silence falls
Evidence of all the giants, that came before.

The water is viscous, thick leather brown,
Wrinkle, writhing its way down, past
Tumble rocks, lattice branches
A universe in moss, that lays along a trunk
Then, soft with foam trestles,
It floats along a silent current-
All is at peace,
A rare breeze rattles the canopy