A mountain whisper

At dusk, rain threatened.

A soft musky fragrance of incense curled from the mosque on Signal Hill.

Beyond the mosque, just down the path where everyone walks or runs,

hidden in the fynbos, is a scattering of kramats.

This place is where six or seven Islamic wise men and teachers

have been buried for centuries.

Some kramats are ornate, some just marked by stones,

but all covered with a fabric chadar,

pilgrims’ sign of devotion and reverence.

Over here all the kramats are also surrounded by fynbos -

rose-scenting pelargoniums, imphepho, wild rosemary.

On this day rain drops down on the chadars,

mist covers the pine trees and the big mountain slowly disappears.

As-salam alaykum. Peace be upon you, whispers the mountain.

And it does.

Rain drops  on the chadar.

Breathing rocks

At six o’clock, as the week folded its wings into the weekend,

the rain swept down – hurried, lightly – like a veil in the wind.

This is when the mountain is turned into a jewellery box,

and every leaf, branch and flower

is draped in diamonds and sapphires and crystals.

But the magic that flings itself forward –

that makes me gasp at their beauty,

are simply two rocks,

breathing in the light of the setting sun.

Two pine needles

It’s a windless summer afternoon on the mountain.

On a knobbly rock under a thick-barked old pine tree

exists a lichen and moss artwork in a hidden shady spot.

Today just two pine needles cross gently over this masterpiece

and swallows fly fast and sharply under small flag whistles.

It’s hot.

Snakes and other gifts

Wrapped in the pink of proteas and yellow daisy fields blurring in the wind this afternoon, lost in the golden universe of the mountain, it had been a long time since I thought of snakes. A man running ahead of me on the path at Kloof Corner suddenly came back to tell me he had just seen a puffadder and he was worried about Roxy sniffing out the snake.

So I picked her up and he went to show me where the snake had just crossed the path and had curled up under a rock. That's where he still was; I would never have noticed him. I was happy to have had a (safe) snake encounter and wondered again how often I pass snakes that I never notice. In all the many years of walking on the mountain, it's only the third time I saw a snake, and never felt threatened. Yet my reptile brain still whispers: ssssnake.....

After the snake, this crisp, clear winter's afternoon on the mountain still had a few other gifts. The late afternoon light reflecting in the water pouring over rocks. The sun highlighting one furry petal of a protea. And after the sun sank over the ocean, the whole sky lit up in the after-glow.

Water seeps out of the mountain.

Just so

And then the moon was suddenly there; as the birds quietened down, the sunlight left the waterfall and the path down the mountain paled. Although, of course, it had been there all along.

Day and Night

With this band of golden light, do I thee wed, said the Day to the Night. 
And then the lights came on as the crowd cheered and Night took Day away.

Dance of quicksilver

A golden day slips out under the quicksilver of a cold front. One sunny day that stands like a red and green-jacketed soldier with medals glittering in a line of grey rainy winter days.

From the mountain looking out over the ocean you can see the play and dance and argument of this day and the cold front. It’s as if grey clouds push the blue sky down, turning the ocean turquoise with cold silver light making wells on the surface.

Up here the buchu and mountain rosemary and impopo have the slender heat of the sunny day in their oily leaves, covering my fingers with their wild mountain scent when I crush them.

The waxy yellow flowerheads of a protea catch the last light and glow in the darkening day. Then the huge sun slips out underneath the grey and rides the day out over the sea in a wide beam of gold.

The next morning I wake up as the rain clatters down on the roof and know without looking out the window: all is now grey.