Chamonix

An Autumn prose poem

Here in Australia it is Springtime, with Summer a hot presence looming almost in sight. My “Summer Delicious” poem is an early product of that and more will come, but before our Summer truly arrives I would like to add my small contribution to the cascade of images and words about Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, far away from me beyond the equator. Substack is almost overflowing right now with gorgeous evocations of that season.

Around this time last year we were in France, with Meg indulging my somewhat obsessive love of mountains, and this is how it looked….

The wind and the cloud have returned to the high peaks.  The Aguille du Midi, still visible far above the valley, marks the boundary of earth and sky, clutching wispy shreds of mist to snow swatched flanks of stone.  They swirl and dissipate then reform – their almost substance and shapeshifting fluidity a contrast to the obdurate enduring granite of the spire, and the pale arctic mint of the massive frozen seracs teetering below, in the terminal icefall of the Glacier des Bossons.

Higher still and beyond, at the edge of sight, Mt Blanc du Tacul appears, then disappears, then emerges to view again, shedding a thick wave of turbulent cloud racing before the wind.

Now the sun, sinking Westward all afternoon into this soft vaporous cushion, can at last peek beneath the farthest edge, setting the rich green of the grass by the chalet burning with colour, and sparking the warm yellow spectrum of the Autumn leaves into wavering life.

Even the icefall poised above the valley sheds glints of diamond light from shards and facets, and the white tendrils of glacial meltwater foaming down the final cliffs glisten – water released from the slow, rock grinding, chain gang prison of ice – changing state and leaping away, dreaming of rivers, oceans and someday, maybe, of rising, resurrected – uplifted and transmuted -  back to the airy freedom of cloud.