The Chasm
Inside ‘The Fortress’, the Grampians
We trod soft between stone sentinels
of a time before fish
in a land thick with scrub
where ancients stamped their prints
on the face of living rock
in mournful contemplation
of the passport to insanity
nearby
the chasm reached deep into the mountain
a slit
a womb wide enough to climb into
if you dared
the first climb painless
just a taste
an hors d’oeuvre to get you in
to hook you
and just beyond that the fall
straight down
far enough to kill you
if you fell
slippery wet with weeping
into Middle-earth
our last chance to turn back
but we went on
fear shaking our heart
the guide directed every move
like a stop-motion movie
as slow as stick-insects
we made it down
but it wasn’t the end
not yet not even near
we went on
we had to
sheer drop after sheer drop
into the black
with its cold morgue breath
the chasm narrowed
squeezed us
I missed a footing sliding
scraping against the wall
landing with a bump
the others watched in horror
at what happened
what nearly happened
but we carried on
the slit narrowed
we side-stepped
like cartouche-Pharos
breathing out till we fitted
slithering fish-like
birthing from the mountain
into golden air.
Stephanie Russell lives in the Adelaide Hills, and is a qualified integrative counsellor and psychotherapist specialising in transgender and gender diversity. Her tertiary qualifications include a doctorate in astronomy from the Australian National University, masters in counselling and psychotherapy from Adelaide University, and an advanced diploma in professional writing from Adelaide TAFE. Various career paths have involved working in physics, astronomy and aerospace engineering. Research directions ranged from chemical synthesis in stars and galaxies, to resilience to climate change in Indigenous communities. Writing interests have included fictional and non-fictional short stories, poetry, and the “emotional heart of what it means to be human”. She is compiling a collection of her poems for publication.
Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to poetscorner@solsticemedia.com.au. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.
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