Glenn McPherson: ‘A Cathedral of Rocks’

A Cathedral of Rocks

A bush wren is taken by a golden snake
Before my eyes. Summer’s ugly heat is still
In the footbridge from yesterday.
Lantana, like emblazoned clown pubes
Or children’s coloured popcorn belittles
Such a death. In Australia, the black snakes
Are laconic but no less dangerous.

An obsession with origins is necessary
For the naturalist. Naturally, we consider
How the rocks were named, and when, for a moment
Then continue on to the beach—for I
Am no naturalist. Is it odd to hear
The dividing waves break so far off, as if
Filled with all the negative space of the cliffs?

Confessions of seafoam and weed, make
Themselves at home. It is no Sistine chapel
But it is always nice to have a little shade,
A little respite afforded by the cave.
Closing both eyes just enough could pass
For salvation of a sort, at least until the
Seagulls descend on the bait fish in the gully.

Then again, these too, form from elementary
Aspersions: birds dive while fish leap
Into inverse natures. Soon enough desires wane.
The poultice of pulled-apart clouds, arrive
By mid-morning as anemones in the run-off
Mistake their shadows and close up.
It won’t be seen as a “joke” though, “a bit of fun”—

They remain clotted and blood red
Even in the sun. Every bit operates
As a respirator only. And there are times
I consider words a disease. Myths born
Of these, like any good myth, begin
In the sea. O how I wished, as a boy,
How I longed for the warm solitude of a pew

In a stain-glassed cathedral. More
Than that even: more formidable by far,
Was the gasping weight of a beauty
I saw once on the lips of a vagrant
Who stood, full-faced in the doorway
Speaking God-only-knows what, into
The sky. Can you believe that?

A new end to the day is a mistake,
It’s pointless. Look! You can’t take that hunk
Of rock, look at it in the context of an ocean;
Or pretend the wind doesn’t scream by at an
Almighty pace. You can’t make anything of it.
Even if you try, the journey back up the beach
Is just long enough to burn raw, your feet.

Glenn McPherson