And of that kind of permanence—
rooted to the point of being immoveable,
capable of shouldering wolves even
when their pelts are trowelled with pine-needled
snow; pure terrain of facets and crevices that doubles
up time as though looped in a skein around the
mountain’s glassy interiority, peachstone of the terrifying
always—escapes comparison with any of the small
constructs it shelves. Balanced against the void
of a cicada husk, or the tongueless antlers
of an elk, it is an intact abstraction, loath
to concede to the cluster of lines and arcs
shaping its minutiae. The scales do not tilt. Not even
a soul, incomplete and invisible, could secure
a foothold among its contagion of vectors
and inclines. Ghostlooming, its iced peak
puts out the eyes of clouds, and is skinned only
by the sun. But that tiny yield of the frozen
nuzzles its peripheries, then eats away in
earnest, bisecting it until it becomes a mountain
in diptych, two-faced. Water wilts order. The soul
tails the black-bedded melt until it hits the face,
and begins to scale it.
…
Sarah Holland-Batt lives in Brisbane and is presently undertaking her Master of Philosophy at the University of Queensland. [Original bio from 2006]
Image: Evan Forester
Flickr (CC-BY-2.0)