Lesson from a Stone Persona
from the painting by Anthony Cain
by Mark Goodwin
Eiger you lied to
or did I lie
to myself?
you squat pyramid-bulk
vast like the proverbial brick house
Buddha's bad side hunched huge
above Grindelwald
six thousand feet of grimace seen
from Kleine Scheidegg:
a wrath-grooved rock visage
fit for an ogre with a wit
concise as stonefall
(I chuckled sometimes: thought of Whillans)
yet you caught me out
with subtlety:
on my way up
from the valley on the Wetterhorn
I saw
your Mitellegi aspect:
a surprise edge to your character
I hadn't known that you're also
a limestone blade
I'd not considered
an eastern view before nor had I read
the contour-clues of the map - I'd lied
and only looked into
your Eigerwand
I'd ignored the fact
that just like people mountains
can't have
a single faced single aspect
your bulk then shattered
but in my young climber's mind
your fabled danger
was only multiplied
and since then I've tried
to be ready for the way
mountains surprise
I've failed
with joy but
not enough to be dazzled
out of life
and now I'm older I've realised
that discovering
your blade-elegant alter-ego
helped teach me -
it's the hidden faces the hidden aspects
that are most dangerous
and not so much of climbs but of climbers
other people
From Climber magazine, August 1995. |
Clogwyn du'r Arddu
from the painting by Anthony Cain
by Mark Goodwin
painted
as rain-sheened pewter
Cloggy
erupts
from intricate screes
stroked
into this portrait
by patience focussed
through a brush-tip
this scene's cliff-
amphitheatre is
stone-audience
to the liquid-song
of that copper-blue llyn
the only softness
in this art hangs
as sky
for the sculpted
flesh of Welsh stone here
inspires
a harsh ardour
From Climber magazine, August 1995. |
