(Inside ‘The Fortress’ in the Grampians)

We trod soft between stone sentinels
of a time before fish
in a land thick with scrub 
where ancients stamped their prints
on the face of living rock
in mournful contemplation  
of the passport to insanity

nearby     
the chasm reached deep into the mountain
a slit    
a womb wide enough to climb into
if you dared

the first climb painless 
just a taste 
an hors d’oeuvre to get you in
to hook you
and just beyond that the fall
straight down 
far enough to kill you
if you fell

slippery wet with weeping 
into Middle-earth
our last chance to turn back
but we went on 
fear shaking our heart

the guide directed every move
like a stop-motion movie
as slow as stick-insects
we made it down

but it wasn’t the end 
not yet not even near
we went on 
we had to

sheer drop after sheer drop
into the black 
with its cold morgue breath 
the chasm narrowed
squeezed us

I missed a footing sliding
scraping against the wall
landing with a bump
the others watched in horror
at what happened
what nearly happened
but we carried on

the slit narrowed 
we side-stepped
like cartouche-Pharos 
breathing out till we fitted 
slithering fish-like
birthing from the mountain
into golden air 

Originally published in Poets Corner, by InDaily, 2023