The Magic Mountain
I live in sight of an old volcano,
not snow-capped but covered in trees.
I live in the cauldron it carved long ago,
coughing up lava like gobs of phlegm.
From here we see daily the handsome profile
of an ancient warrior outlined in the peaks.
Some, though, insist it’s really the shape
of a brush turkey: head down, tail up. I see that too.
For 200 years or more we called it Mt Warning.
Then we restored the true name, Wollumbin.
Or did we? It remains in dispute; other names
claimed by some of the Original people.
Jack might go up this hill, but not Jill. Women,
we are told, are forbidden to scale these heights.
Some women, nearing the top, have seen the warrior
appear with his spear to ward them off the summit.
But I love to climb the lower slopes a short way up,
placing myself in the middle of the ancient trees.
This mountain is said to be full of crystals. Often
they are found on nearby paths, or in streams.
Those who live here know, this whole Caldera
surrounding the mountain calls people here.
Some it spits out! (And some stay, but feel afraid.)
Called and made welcome 25 years ago, I remain.
For day 10 of Poems in April at 'imaginary garden with real toads', we are asked to grab the nearest book, open at random and read the first sentence on that page. Then there are various things we might do with those words. I chose the option of using all of them in a poem.
The book was Real Face, by Ken Smeaton, which I had the honour of publishing under the Abalone Press imprint – OMG, 32 years ago. It was nearby because I've recently been proof-reading his forthcoming 'new and selected' and was referring back to some of the original texts, including this one. The poem I opened to was 'Collarenebri Hospital', and the first sentence reads (slashes indicating line breaks on the page):
Handsome Jack / in the middle of the ward / an old snow-capped volcano / coughing up 200 years of phlegm.
I love that you are now calling it by its original name. We colonialists are trying to learn the indigenous place names around here, but the names are not easy to master for our English tongues.
ReplyDeleteI do see an old warrior in that outline..........wonderful, Rosemary!
I rather incline to the belief that it has been mistakenly renamed and one of the other indigenous names claimed for it would be correct – however, the powers that be have settled on Wollumbin as they once did on Captain Cook's appellation, Mt Warning, and that works to identify it at least ... for the present.
DeleteMy beloved Northern Rivers, the caldera, Byron, and beyond. It calls me, but I cannot answer for good. Only for short periods of time.
ReplyDeleteI love your use of the words from the sentence and it's done very effectively. It has a very natural flow — I found the images of the warrior as well as the brush turkey delightful. There is a certain mysticism in how you portray this tale as if a legend or fantasy. A really enjoyable read!
ReplyDeleteGoodness this is beautiful!💖 Now I want to climb that mountain with you!😊
ReplyDeleteSuch an interesting history, and beautiful perspective of the mountains of home.
ReplyDeleteI can see why someone might think Mount Warning would make a good name, at first look the mountain looks like a woman screaming. But the aboriginal name is so much better, more descriptive, less limiting... Wollumbin speaks of the same warrior woman catching clouds, or protecting the mountain with her cry and song.
ReplyDeleteCaptain Cook saw the mountain from the sea, in time to stop his boat going on the rocks, so he named it Mt Warning. It is so tall and so far east that it's the first place in Australia to get the rays of the rising sun (should have worked that into the poem!). The warrior is supposed to be a very specific one, and definitely male. However you are spot-on in another respect: Wollumbin is sometimes translated as 'cloud catcher' (and it's quite common to see clouds around the peak).
DeleteBeautiful and awe-inspiring look at the mountain.
ReplyDeleteI’m late to reading and commenting because of the problems I have with my Kindle, not least reading small fonts. Even on my laptop I had to cut and paste your poem into a Word document before I could read it – but it was worth the wait, Rosemary. I love the way you describe the old volcano as a cauldron ‘coughing up lava like gobs of phlegm’ and the different things you see when you look at it.
ReplyDeleteMy goodness, I am grateful for you reading it when it took you so much trouble. People have sometimes mentioned my 'small font'. The trouble is, it doesn't show up as small to me! I wonder if other people whose fonts I perceive as small see them as a good size at their end, too? (Yours is fine.) In the 'View' menu on my laptop I can 'Zoom in', even a couple of times if necessary, and enlarge the small fonts on other people's blogs that way.
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