Look out there, what do you see?

I see a blaze of sun coated peaks surrounding this rocky mountain zenith,

A scarlet currency of outback and altitude that draws both climber and gaze,

And like the many climbers up here before me, I’m not disappointed atop Patawarta,

So I see the world as others do, mostly, logically, typically…

Look out there again … what do you see?

I see jagged summits guarding a distant plain, postcard soldiers beneath a blue Camelot sky,

I see an encircling horizon that comfortably defines theirs and my earth cleaved extent,

Patawarta stands above all its surrounding kind, so there is nothing to blemish my view,

It makes full viewing sense … simple!

Look closer, what do you see?

I see the same!

A view, a vista, an all-points panorama that a thousand metres of altitude naturally gives,

Some peaks stand with grasstree dots, some shadow the light, some touch like old souls,

Maybe in their secluded clefts and folds a sense of sanctuary can be glimpsed,

But each to their own search I say, be it vistas of sanctuary, or just inanimate reality…

No, No, No, look closer, look within, what do you see?

Alright, 

Let’s suppose each peak out there looms or laments, staring back with consciousness,

Perhaps the flat bordering plain is their foil, ready to nudge, extend, or embrace,

Perhaps the valley below is an old friend, a winding boulevard of chemistry and years,

Perhaps the misty afternoon hues are a day-end’s conversation,

Perhaps the distant salt-lake shimmer is a badge – gregarious, luminous, un-wanting of more.

And …. what else do you see?

Maybe there is intimacy in the way the breeze brushes frond and skin,

Or certainty in the late-afternoon shadows that labour their way home across the valley,

Maybe the ochre sun-setting sky is an ancient blanket, warm, all forgiving, well used,

Maybe this sky-tall zenith is a sentinel, guardian of a view to good times now past,

Maybe I am in old company, maybe I remember …

Do you see anything else?

It is late in the day, and I see a heavy curtain of darkness falling once again,

The departing sun now bleeds from below the horizon, a plunge so difficult to arrest,

Soon I shall curse the fickle half-light moon as the devil’s lantern to purgatory,

And soon I will see nothing but the steely flecks of stars, and it will be cold,

Just like last night, just like the night before, just like always, black, bleak, simple,

Such is the grief of loss.

Yet from a blanket above, can grief’s cold curse not find warmth once again?

Can the touch of intimacy not restore faith in one’s search for sanctuary?

Can the guarding sentinel not re-light the eyes of the orphaned journeyman?

And if darkness were only fleeting, there just to follow each better day’s light,

Would you follow me?

Look out there … do you see me …

Paul R Falkenberg

Next: From the archive: PATAWARTA HILL