A SHEER CALL

A SHEER CALL



The monumental svelte erectness
of a pencil cypress that is something!
A frame of tree trunk and limbs entirely
clad in tight foliage, close as modesty
a risen uprightness that bends like grace
as a mercy from any too-tight vertical
but never bending too far, quite abiding
in its taught spring back to upright justice
to a sheer line of dignity at living rampant
a plumb column to the honour of stature.

The call of a high pillar of being descends
even to each milepost to red boxes of the Post
as each light post in a power line rises cut off
from its longing to be more elevated, each one
descends from such a real living column, even a
boundary fence post knows the statuesque longing
as its corner post is cut off from its claim to
boundary rights in the sky, but even it holds
to the old memory of its kin, that sheer call
to be a column principled as a pencil pine.



- 17th January 2015

Picture: Front Entrance Avenue, Langmiel Lutheran Church, Barossa Valley, South Australia