Der Berggeist

‘If there were no small pines in the fields,’ he murmured to himself. Such a fitting reference, I felt; far better than any new poem of mine could have been. I was most impressed.
– Diary of Lady Murasaki



[Monday, 3rd January – 10.55 a.m.]

Leicester has found a strange orchid, which he wishes to collect. Time for an orange-break.

Sunlight gleams

the leafy spot
we passed on the track

foaming, tannin-brown stream

miraculously green rock

“The weather’s not doing what it should be – I don’t have it properly trained” – Leicester Kyle in the Fisherman’s Rest, Granity.



Der Berggeist

Tom’s words laid bare the hearts of trees
– J. R. R. Tolkien



Bush-lawyer glow-worms
in the garden butcher’s
shop ground to stone
slabs Dracophyllum
Mountain Neinei Dr
Seuss Trees the yellow
orchid like
Aladdin’s cave a pothole
in the moors with water
flowing by the Christmas
bush so long
as no-one mentions
anything to do
with Christmas
green like that stone
you picked up last
time from the Gentle
Annie



[Jack Ross, Chantal’s Book (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002) 95-96].