An hour or two before the evening
the sun’s rays touched the tree,
dead, its last leaves pale on some branches,
a handful now, some little emblems
of light against the sky.
When I returned the orange light
was gone, clottered blood was
on its side, and sticks like
fingers pointing and
bark, like cast off clothes.
A tree sunk and lost in a well,
its roots descending in the black waters.
The ocean is thicker than water or blood,
darker as starlight and night.
The tree drinks eternity,
fine leaves envelop its trunk,
shooting life to its outstretched branches.
Twelve tears from the sky
whose face was shrouded by
cloud and night
and the tenuous web of joy
drunk in its sorrow
the leaf and earth greened
in invisible night
the towering womb
loosened the day spring
From the branches the bark hung in strips,
still in the faint breeze.
The trunk was brown as far as the first branches,
above them, the light new bark.
The leaves gently moved against the background
of clouds and pale sky.
God is my friend
In shifting light
of a windy day
I write this
I am outside
sitting among ferns
To my left is
a corner of bay
Ants walk on rocks
The wind disguises the sounds
of cicadas and birds
This is were I
spent my childhood
I can hear a dog’s bark
on the hill behind
When I touched
a sunlit fern leaf
it was blown from me
When I close my eyes
I see disturbed sand
sinking to the bottom
The low clouds
move quickly
I find sleep,
awakened by birds and ants
Dark walls carved in the heart,
binding the light outside, love’s compass
pointing towards north, avoiding shipwreck,
figures of history laid on the walls.
The garden stretching westwards from the hilltops,
the lake reflecting the sky.
They fought at the junction
of rivers flowing from exile
Brother against sister
To sense the voice of the wind
and trace the borer’s path
in the leaves
The sun sent her leprous
the spit of her father
Alone, the sand dried
her wounds and blew
in the well of her weeping
Jacob saw a ladder
rising to the sky
At its base was dust
at its peak were stars
Upon the man of sorrows
sprung a tree of grace
Stars would be his home
but dust his resting place
A cold summer wind on the fields before night.
On the farm track the puddles were speckled with rain.
Mist rose and floated over the hills.
It was one of the first cold autumn days.
A wind had sprung up around noon
and smoke was in the air from bushfires.
In the late afternoon the sky had
a clear, distant look – with shades
of pink in the east.
The trees were cold and delicate
against the horizon.
