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.