James Walton #38 Penny Opera Impromptu on the Count's Journeys

As white as Poland in winter

a man on Main Ridge

checking out the memorial obelisk

mutters that Pawel passed again

within eight kilometres of this place

a bare frown line circumnavigates 

the knobby places beneath his knees

latitudes mapped by gumboots

edged from distant plantations

slapped to conversion in a crucible

fired by oaths of the dispossessed

each atlas ring a determined step

of his many overt sightings

following the marked out trail

where seven bronzed plaques meditate

a verdigris of tarnished seasons

brought naked into the sweet note

of bisecting currawongs summoning markers

opens his arms as he begins to sing

in a voice as wide as Kosciusko’s plains