Observatory Hill

TAPROOT

Observatory Hill, atop the crest

of Sydney Harbor – guarded

by phalanx of great-aged,

magnanimous fig trees – like a nest

for visionary eagles – keeps a lens

trained on stars down

under (twinkling diamond

octahedron, Southern Cross).

Yet here, in a nearby yard, one pine

soars higher than those figs,

flings moth-wide wings –

lime branches drooping like a pinecone

honeycomb – leans into evening

at acute angle (a golden

mean).  Jack’s cheekbones

were so sharp – as that pining

Rail-splitter’s, in the cracked-plate

portrait – like the pyx

flung aloft by priest

or angler’s scale-scorèd blade –

the vertical taproot must plunge deep.

Against sandstorm &

flood, the blistering worm,

a maze of chains... rusted keep

of treason’s rigor mortis – fatal

spire of PX’ed Magdalen.

Where buffalo pern

to droughtland hollow (fetal, natal).

9.20.15

The "cracked-plate portrait", by Alexander Gardner