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.

Like the spring clover his life came,

one among many, a brother.

The sun and new moon and dancing

bees all glimmered on his flowering.

Some days the rain fell, awakening

the grass in rich green, and feeding

the hidden tentacles of weeds.

And when in the heat the clover turned brown

he shared in their suffering, and daily

as more of the field darkened,

his tears lay fresh on the ground.