Aurora Australis, an Elegy

Aurora Australis, an Elegy

Remembering Christopher Koch

Plumes of Aurora Australis ascend

to their elegant zenith,

the phenomenon visible

from Hobart up to Launceston.

You return to the place of your birth

when the cycle is at its maximum,

a rare solar wind

colliding with the Earth’s magnetic field.

Occasional cries of an unknown bird break the quiet,

near the spot where your grandmother

once read to you

from a book of forgotten rhymes.

You were her favourite carried off to a material Babylon,

an exile who created worlds where all things roamed free,

luminous fictions exploring the darkness

layered with intrigue and irony.

The glow gathers intensity during the late hours,

with light bright enough to read those lost verses,

the radiance captured by a member of the press

in one last wide-angle photo.

Dan Guenther