Schist

Central Otago

Out of the hill line, out of kilter, stack, pillar 
tilt of a wing in stone 
as if hand-tooled by a playful builder
not finished yet—moves in the freeze and thaw 
beyond eye-range, shedding and still 
lifting from within

        the way a grief might go through its stages 
        having to come to the core again
        dark varnished to the perishing mud-clogged feather
        withered rosehips on the wild weed rose 
        or the wicked-up blue light of a sheep’s skull
        home to skink & bed for the blue-grey lichens

when the rain allows the lichens lift 
licking the wet air; a schist tor 
raps in the wind to a beat of its own, a century 
blowing from its side 
airlifted over the world
—you couldn’t dream Central’s hills
you couldn’t think them up.

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Rhian Gallagher’s poetry collections include Far-Flung (Auckland University Press, 2020), Shift (Auckland University Press, 2011) winner of the 2012 New Zealand Post Book Award for Poetry, and Salt Water Creek (Enitharmon, 2003) shortlisted for the Forward Prize for First Collection.