ELEANORE KOSYDAR

Stoned

(Canada Day, Spencer Gorge)

splayed across two boulders
at the bottom of the gorge
he lay like a fallen bird,
head oddly askew
dead to the holiday world
of revellers scrambling over rocks,
bony bare chest impossibly still . . .

above water’s tumultuous
descent
anxious whispers
struggle to bridge a gap:

is he all right?
he hasn’t moved for ages!
is he breathing?

slowly
the gaunt figure
surfaces
from numbed depths,
weakly brushes haze and tangled
waist-length hair from glazed eyes,
slowly, painfully sits up
downcast head in hands

rising at last
to trembling feet
draws threadbare shirt
over haunted frame, then stumbles
along his rock-strewn
crestfallen way

outcast,
wild
as this place
of ragged beauty
where, for a while
he strayed


ELEANORE  KOSYDAR