Mount Barker, South Australia
by Leonard Cohen
There are some men
who should have mountains
to bear their names to time.
Grave-markers are not high enough
or green,
and sons go far away
to lose the fist
their father’s hand will always seem.
I had a friend:
he lived and died in mighty silence
and with dignity,
left no book, son, or lover to mourn.
Nor is this a mourning-song
but only a naming of this mountain
on which I walk,
fragrant, dark, and softly white
under the pale of mist.
I name this mountain after him.
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The photo above shows ‘Womma Mu Kurta’ (the Mountain on the Plain) – more familiarly known as Mount Barker, named for Capt. Collet Barker (1784-1831), 39th Foot Regiment, whose resting place somewhere near the mouth of the River Murray is unknown. Capt. Barker’s epitaph, the final quote in his journal, consists of the first two lines of Alexander Pope’s “Ode on Solitude“:
Thus unlamented let me dye;
Steal I from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lye.”
