Contests : Margaret Reid Poetry Contest : Past Winners : 2009 : Most Highly Commended
TO DRIFT IN SANDSTONE FOLDS
Soft-footed shadows creep in fossil shades.
Beneath the cliffs of Gariwerd the evening
Chill exhales in fractured, weathered glades.
Folded, tilted memories. Exposed and turning.
Our history shelved in countless volumes, etched
On rock—bound in earth. Sandstone pages
Cradling species crouched below cracked skin—
Chronicles of a planet's fading ages.
Our past—where rock-kissed bones dance deep within.
Primordial oceans swell beneath our feet,
Burst in wind-split waves, and I am cast
In valleys where the past and present speak.
Of all the species will ours be the last?
Within still depths still jawless creatures leap—
Mineral shoals whose broken bodies turn,
And twist within their geologic tombs.
Deeper, earth's indifferent furnace burns,
And mountains writhe and rise in molten wombs.
Perhaps someday in death we too may rise,
Borne upon the backs of mountains. Raised,
To drift in sandstone folds: immortalized.
This poem won a Most Highly Commended award in the 2009 Margaret Reid Poetry Contest sponsored by Tom Howard Books. Author Alys Jackson received a $100 award. Winning Writers assists this contest. Copyright is reserved to the author.
About Alys Jackson
Alys Jackson spent 12 years teaching throughout Asia and the Middle East
before settling in Australia. She began writing poetry in 2008 and won a first
and a second prize in the 2009 Henry Lawson Festival of Arts Poetry Contest. She is currently working on her first book.
