Gerry Jacobson

One of My Nine

We’ve come from Melbourne to New Zealand for a climbing trip. Me and that tall blonde girl whose smile is the sunshine: my climbing partner.  High on the narrow ridge of Malte Brun, the great rock peak beside the Tasman Glacier, I need two hands on the greywacke. So I stuff the ice-ax down my pack. It snags, and dislodges a huge block; I go down the cliff with it. She holds me on the rope: I scramble back up, with a few abrasions. Suppose I had died at nineteen, who would remember me now? A Melbourne granny perhaps, with a vague recollection of her first boyfriend? Or perhaps not? 

in the gym
this Sunday afternoon
the climbers swagger . . .
I watch them
from an older generation

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About the Author

Gerry Jacobson lives in Canberra, Australia, and can be found writing tanka in its cafes.  He was a geologist in a past life and now celebrates reincarnation as a dancer.