Photo on postcard – rather more than a mere snapshot! –
© Andi Islinger 1996, used with permission.
(The following 'word snapshots' were views
from the other side and much further down.)
1. Looking up
Last time I looked up, The Pinnacle rose from mist; now it’s whited out.
Waterfalls of cloud curl over the mountain rim, a frothing torrent.
Pockets of mist stay, lingering around the foot of the jutting peak.
On the mountaintop a line of tree silhouettes, back-dropped by white sky.
2. Looking around
All green – grass, trees, hills; at the tip of a long stem, one red hibiscus.
Purple, red, yellow lanterns outside my window – the flowering trees.
A butterfly poised white on the end of a stem – the azalea sways.
In the farthest tree, suddenly a bright red flash – a rosella feeds.
The hibiscus dips: a magpie has glided in; it perches, head cocked.
Moss on stone; bare stone pointing finger-like to sky; bare sky; one small cloud.
***
Side view of The Pinnacle: the central, sharply pointed peak.
The 'word snapshots' were viewed from the bottom
of what is here the left face. (Photo mine.)
When, 30 years ago, my late husband Andrew Wade and I came to live in the Northern Rivers region of NSW, Australia, we rented a house for the first few years under a peak called The Pinnacle, not far from a village named Tyalgum. This weekend I'm one of the featured poetry readers at a one-day festival in Tyalgum, so I fished out some of the poems I wrote back then. These above were originally supposed to be haiku. I didn't know how to write haiku then – I thought it was just a matter of syllable count. So I have now discarded some, slightly rewritten others and turned them into American sentences (invented by Allen Ginsberg as a Western version of haiku). Each sentence is a separate snapshot in words.
Sharing this post (off-prompt) with Friday Writings #110 at Poets and Storytellers United.
"Moss on stone; bare stone pointing finger-like to sky; bare sky; one small cloud." - I love this especially... though they all work wonderfully as American sentences ... Good luck with the reading, sounds like it will be a fun evening!
ReplyDeleteThank you. The poetry reading will be in the afternoon, which suits me. The old bod doesn't do bush dancing any more!
DeleteI like how the slight butterfly can bend an azalea. First under The Pinnacle and then at the pinnacle. :)
ReplyDeleteNow, why didn't I think of that clever – and accurate – word-play?
DeleteThank you for sharing this beautiful part of the world with us. The American sentence structure really works well here. They're perfect snapshots.
ReplyDeleteOh good, I'm glad they worked for you.
DeleteSo much going on in those last few lines! Like a symphony coming to a pinnacle. I like and am thinking about the word pinnacle.
ReplyDeleteIt is a good word, isn't it? And as you see, very aptly used in this case.
DeleteWonderful American sentences! I love the first one best. It says so much, the past, and now. We have Pinnacles National Park in the US. I think they and yours are both limestone.
ReplyDeleteOurs is part of a huge volcanic caldera, and is basalt.
DeleteNice images. I liked the view with *one* red hibiscus.
ReplyDelete(Wretched "updates"...I'm not anonymous, I'm Priscilla KIng.)
Thanks, Priscilla. It's a pretty part of the world. (And I'm glad to know this is you.)
DeleteBeautiful snapshots, Rosemary. Sooo love the sudden 'bright red flash' of the rosella!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you enjoyed them!
DeleteThey are all beautiful sentences but this one pops for me:
ReplyDelete"All green – grass, trees, hills; at the tip of a long stem, one red hibiscus."
*Smile.* As it did in life.
DeleteI love the sentence structure of this piece. The photos are stunning.
ReplyDelete