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.)