THE TRIG       1964

Black, white.

Steel deep in stone
Black, white, black. 

Solitary,
Black white, black, white, black,
Amid the eternal storms, a marker.

One straight vertical line straight to the sky,
Drenched in wetness of rain,
Ringing with the stony bite of flying hail,
Shivering, unsheltered, ignored.

Alone, atop the fell field.
Wide the vista, stretching out beneath
Far to the oceans of two coasts,
Where the waves gnaw at the black rocks
And a gull cries unheard above the chaos.

Isolated, lost in the glut of mist, 
Black white, black white, the stake
Driven strong into an earth heart,
Held with a tight fisted grip of cement, and stones
One steel pole, a gesture left behind
A mark in time, a mark of place.

Great howling, whistling, sirens
Chanting songs of the wild swirl of winds.
Gales, blasting squalls,
Whipping strands of snow tussock
Lashing thin tongues
Shrill laughs in the pitch of the night.
Resonant, but unheard,

Licking flames of a gathering dawn
Embers of an evenings final glow,
The penetration of drizzle, greyness, total.
The pulse of australis lights.
The death of any light,
Cold night black.

A sentinel of gravest isolation
Black, white, black white.
Scant cloaks of flaking paint
Marked protection, forgotten
Fading in the meekest sun.

At a distance
Watching, waiting for when?
Wondering why?
Unmoved by wind or logic.

Black, white, 
Remaining, atop steady,
The sentinel.

Enduring the wait,
Suffering the winds, the clouds.

Black, white, black, white.