Selected poems
The Summit of Choice
She is sitting on the edge of a mountain in the Annapurna,
her face, away from the camera,
her gaze, focused on the Lamjung peak,
experiencing a moment of peace
like many before and many after,
the seconds could be hours could be days,
the weather could be challenging or kind,
she could be alone or surrounded by trekkers,
it has taken careful hoarding of time and money
to be sitting there framed by sky and snow
hardly a foot away from death,
thinking of nothing and everything,
feeling No God and All God,
standing up, leaping forward,
standing up, going back,
she is sitting on the edge of a mountain in the Annapurna,
she has crossed a rhododendron forest,
held tightly to the rails of a rickety bridge
overlooking the Marsyangdi River,
she has passed through mud floor, village huts,
compared her mountain boots to Sherpa’s sandals,
guilt and shame has sunk into her breast bone,
her body with its frozen toe, altitude migraine, whimpering stomach
has acclimatised to gratitude
for the nourishment of daahl,
for the breath of pure air,
for the joy of one step after the other,
back home, she was told to strive for Everest,
the one with knife like peaks, aligned with Western quest
to scale the top at cost of health and ego,
she is sitting on the edge of a mountain in the Annapurna,
her cup of contentment continues to be filled and emptied
by her Nepalese mentor
who talks the view into experience of light and dark
of how the lower range brings the cradle of shade
to nurture you as the child you must become.
Shelter
We are the travelers of small steps
wearing pyjamas and slippers
to greet each room as if it were a country
encountered from a plane flight,
konichiwa to the space called Living
ola to the island called Kitchen
ni hao to the mattress of pent up dreams,
in the study there is the desk
holding geography’s memory,
salve, kalimera, take me with you.
My mother will be lighting her candles
on her bench top to create her church,
my father will shuffle with his frame
to the chair on the porch with the vista
of his twelve-year-old eyes diving
for sea sponges from an unsteady pier.
This space termed Home
is a document of journey
as we come to know the walls as trees
we long to climb,
the doors to close or open
depending on altitude and inclement,
the ceiling will seem higher than Everest,
from the carpet we see the grit
of hiking through jungle.
And there, in the lonely corner
is the blue rug to sit on and breathe in
the smell of the ocean calling its waves
to sweep our dust.
The Daily Commute
Up till 15 March 2020
This train carried a market place of colour and language,
it was the variety of skin from deep texting black
to the open call of caramel and my skin
with its comments on weather and work
was there as not-quite-white with the moles and freckles
colliding into a marriage of Mediterranean sun.
We sat uncaged could touch each other’s shoulder
smell the accent of breakfast, the craving for lunch.
Remember Anisa Zahidee not quite 30 with two degrees
and a bag full of books, Hidayet Ceylan knew her
sat next to her, asked her out once
she politely declined, they still talked
he knew some Farsi, she knew some Turkish
created a dance of words with English falling in
at each stop to remind us we were driven
and our worth was pre-sold.
From 5 April 2020
Woman 1 is sitting front seat with her back
to Woman 2 who sits mid-carriage
away from Only Man in the corner watching.
Woman 1 is wearing surgical mask.
Only Man is wearing white cotton mask.
Woman 2 is wearing bandanna over her mouth.
The train’s engine is the monologue of screech
you can hear at a nurses’ desk when they call
the names after hours of waiting, the test
is not to sneeze or cough between stops
to hold breath as you look out the window
at lonely bike paths and roads, the test
is not to look at the face of the other
to work out the colour, the language,
to unearth the story of why, where
and for how long?
Angela Costi's poetry collections are: Dinted Halos (Hit&Miss Publications, 2003), Prayers for the Wicked (Floodtide Audio and Text, 2005), Honey and Salt (Five Islands Press, 2007) and Lost in Mid-Verse (Owl Publishing, 2014). An award from the National Languages Board in 1995 enabled her to study Ancient Greek drama in Greece. She received funding from the Australia Council to work in Japan on an international collaboration involving her poetry, and manages 'Angela Costi Poetics', a Facebook page dedicated to reflecting on the intersection of poetry with contemporary issues.