Three Peaks - the Poem

Three Peaks
Into the Future:
Water, Fire, Rockfall

Walking too fast
from Finestrat's Font Moli,
tripping over tree roots
in a dark start again
until, in a chill
gunmetal grey light,
we surprise the hunter,
a peregrine echoing
high on Puig Campana.
Rounding its summit track
we look down and back
on Benidorm's towers
sucking the ground water
from under our feet.

Descending to the Col de Pouet
we push on towards Ponoch
but take five in a bower
to be burned in the fire
begun in Polop next weekend
when we watch from Sella
a red horizon leaping.
On the summit, in cycling shorts,
stands our village chemist,
deaf and dumb, an able
reader of lips, who leaves
to look over the rim
at what will become black
tree-bones and ashes.

Sanchet is all rock,
and heavy in our heads
on the horizontal donkey
trail below its looming
spine. A siesta is essential
and an orange, a fresh
stance: poc a poc, boulder
by bolder steps to find
on this summit a Hut
Bookings Sec., playing truant
from the phone, one eyebrow
plastered, I ponder, as we pass
below a scar of recent rockfall,
a stark future seen for miles.

Terry Gifford