Mark O’Connor poem

Snowgums

Mark O’Connor has written many poems about the high country and is fascinated by the resilient, wind-bent snow gums.

On April days of rinsed blue sun

like a summer’s day on ice

the snowgums dance

in frenzied stasis

barefoot in the snow, freshly stained

rich wine and orgiastic colours.

In the twisted pose of catwalk models

they unwrap, flare out new season’s

salmons, mahoganies, streaky greens and reds.

No russet so rich as those straps that lie

tangled amongst the snow.

(From ‘Snowgums’, in Tilting at Snowgums, Tabletop Press, 1996.  Reprinted with kind permission of the author.)

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