Tags
australian formal poetry, Australian traditional poetry, bush poet, poem, poetry, Sulphur Mountain
Photo © Barbara Blakey Photography
Way up in those northern Rockies
Where the freezing north wind blows,
There’s a mountain high and windswept;
In the winter clad with snows.
It was in a cold December
Came a muso to this peak.
In his old age he’ll remember,
When his bones begin to creak.
With his lady he would climb it
With the air eighteen below,
But if next time he can time it,
‘Twill be summer and no snow.
Now his partner she was bolder;
She was raised in this cold place.
But he just kept getting colder
Till he couldn’t feel his face.
For he’d shivered in the winters
When the bitter cruel winds blow,
And he’d felt the stinging splinters
Of the driven sleet and snow
In the land once known as Prussia,
And in Reykjavik, I’m told,
And the blizzard winds of Russia,
But he’s never been so cold
As on Sulphur Mountain freezing
With his beard coated with snow,
As his breath came short and wheezing,
And frost bit at every toe.
Yes its beauty was enticing;
All around the great peaks rose,
But the wind through him was slicing
And he reckoned he was froze.
He was quite some time in thawing
But he says it was good craic,
While he sits by a fire roaring
Till he gets some feeling back.
© Dennis N. O’Brien, 2013
Dedicated to a creative couple
craic (pron. crack) – Irish for fun etc.
Thoughts and poems of cold weather will help you during your hot days that you’re undergoing. 🙂 Good one.
Well it was very hot and basically in drought with trees dying all over the place, but now we’ve had more rain in the last two days then in the previous seven months and we could be headed for a flood – that’s Australia for you..
Very nice job on the poem, Dennis, but BRRRRRR!!! This man MUST have been in love!
Still is I suspect Sandra. 😉
You describe cold well & with rhyme & rhythm…
Thank you Lindy lee