The world we see only shadows
what was there. So a dead man
fables in your chair, or stands
in the space your table now holds.
Over your hearth the sea hisses
and a storm wind harshly blows.
Before your eyes the red sandstone
of the wall crumbles, weed run wild
where three generations ago
a meadow climbed, above a city
which now slowly multiplies,
its gaunt silos, fuming mills,
strange to the first inhabitants
as Atlantis to a fish’s eyes.
(Grattan Hill, 1974)
Mount Eagle (1988)