Bernie Peach

from 'Sing with the Wind'

Published by Envirobook 1989

Bungonia Gorge

You call it grand;

'Look down," you say, and stand and stare,

Half fearful of the darkness there,

Of limestone drop and driving air,

And grip the rail

With fingers chill as Autumn host

And know yourself a fragment tossed

Within the arms of space and lost

Yes, it is grand:

'Look up," you say, and point to where

You gripped the rail and paused to stare,

A pygmy on the summit there;

And turn away,

To clamber where the ages slept

And changing time her torment left

In granite tears within the cleft

Bernard W Peach

"Into The Blue"

June 1950

Blind Child At Echo Point

The sun is a lamp to your hand

Guiding along dark corridors

To a distant, splendid land;

Warming the wind on your face

That breathes the unseen

Brown rock, the green tree grace;

Bearing a hint of incense, too,

Of wet wood moss and drowning leaf

And eucalyptus drawn through

A sieve of spiralled air;

Child, how much more do you see

than the fat man standing there

Who turns away, regretting his taxi fare.

Bernard W Peach

"Into The Blue"

November 1961