The ground had rumbled for quite some time
It was only a minor quake,
The people grumbled, it came and went
But it kept them all awake,
‘They say there was a volcano here
A billion years ago,
But it’s long since dead, the geologists said,
And there’ll be no lava flow.’

They’d built the suburb on rising ground,
And roads, right up to the peak,
The ground was rocky and unforgiving
The soil was grey and weak,
So little grew on that rising crest
Just the odd saltbush or so,
They couldn’t drill through the rock beneath
To help their bushes grow.

I would venture out and would take the air
When the house cooled down at night,
But always felt there was something there
That would make me feel uptight,
I felt the rumble, under my feet
It was like a muffled roar,
And I thought a whimsical thought one night,
It was like an old man’s snore.

One night I wandered up to the crest
And I saw two bushes move,
They seemed to tremble and flutter there
Just above a ball shaped groove,
The rumble stopped as I stood and watched
From under the starlit skies,
The bushes opened to crystal orbs,
Just like a pair of eyes.

They fixed me there in their crystal stare
And I didn’t dare to breathe,
The summit started to shake and move,
And then it began to heave,
The houses built on the crest fell down
It was like a huge hiccup,
And I fell tumbling to the ground
As the Mountain God stood up!

David Lewis Paget