Three Poems

John Porter

Windhorses

Autumn Flags

Yesterday’s leaves
were bright prayer flags,
bravely clinging to the gales...
Today, the prayers are replaced
by scriptures of bare branches
etched on a clear blue sky
in many languages.

Tomorrow’s seasons
will turn the trees to mulch,
newsprint, forecasts and possibility.
High clouds scroll past, leaving a trace
of distant mountains half remembered,
the sharp edge of the wind
scatters words at my feet.

North east face of Koh-y-Bandaka

Leaving the Mountains

As I drive home, I imagine an ice axe swung
And crampons finding purpose on thin images
Of past climbs that might just last forever.

The truth we tested lay on north faces:
No joy till the top, no hope of living
Except moving up to where the warmth awaits

Those hard uncertainties shared so steeply
Gathered divisions of our lives together
No luxury of fate fixed in stars.

Yet still that touch of the mountain made,
The hard connections to a way above
Created a link, what we had to do just to be.

Now we face the golden sun descending.
At our back, vast ranges stretch horizons
Like a smile connecting earth with heaven.

Perhaps beyond the furthest dark ranges
We will find what time has not allowed us:
Those signposts to all the unknown places.

These mountains will know all our memories
And we their realities of wind and ice
When we share the same silver dark sea.

The God Shiva!

Passing by

When passing by
and looking up,
on golden snows
and mountain thrones,

Strange to know
This place I’ve been,
to walk the sky
within my bones.

Such paradise lives
beyond the world
beyond the reach
of comfort zones.

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