A mountain tarn,
a deep-water eye,
high and blackly gleaming.
A scramble down slippery scree
to look within,
then a tingling apprehension
of being too close
to an unbalanced footing,
one that is a lip between
tilting ground
and an entrance to nowhere.
I can't say what I expect to see,
not the bottom of a mountain,
a dazzling sky-window,
or the depth of my soul perhaps.
What I see there,
quickly buries a teetering image
into a fear-fall.
Grains of time,
tumble rootless into my mind,
imbedding themselves
in each drop of sweat.
Dizzily I grapple back up,
the whiskers of my beard
stretching toward a pebble
that was not yet tumbling
into a directionless creation,
or a momentary extinction.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note:
A 'Tarn' is a mere (lake), atop a high mountain. It seemingly has no inlet or outlet. "Sree' is an unstable shale that tends to slip under foot.
Categories:
tarn, poetry,
Form: Free verse
you are above
so you descend to the water
on stiff legs
scrabbling down the scree
the tarn looks like mercury
spilled into the umbilicus
of the mountain
when approached
you see the mirroring clarity
where a captured sky
peers inward
from the sloping shale
you throw a pebble
into the water
the splash is small
but its echoing ghost
sinks much deeper
there is no comfort here
only the straining
guide ropes
of a tilting mind
a plunging edge
that tugs at your life
Categories:
tarn, poetry,
Form: Free verse
A mountain tarn,
a mirror blackly gleaming.
I slide down some shale
to peer in. As I stare
there's a tingling apprehension
of being too close to an edge
where sky, land, and reason
drop away.
I can't quite say what I expected to see,
not the bottom of a mountain,
a man's visage maybe,
perhaps some deep mystery?
What I saw buried its reflection
into the back of my mind
where it is still surfacing.
Categories:
tarn, poetry,
Form: Free verse
An inert tarn
In the pond of pleasant memories, a duckling paddled
like an unwanted thought of a spring wedding in Brussel.
Flat stones skipped on the pond in the night, quacked
refused to spit out half-chewed toothpicks forgotten.
Expel the duck and send it abroad to the Saragossa Sea
to a shadowy barren island in the stream
where the monster Amnesia lives; you must be warned
keep away if the ogre gets hold of you, it will not eat
the unwanted, but also the memory of those you loved.
Categories:
tarn, confidence, corruption, earth day,
Form: Free verse
biting cold nipping
on footpath across the mere
a window to life
© Harry J Horsman 2017
Categories:
tarn, nature,
Form: Haiku