No electricity. This failed proof.
Wind and ocean boom in from the south.
On the shallow reef waves churn counter clockwise
lost for hemisphere. The sea shreds dreams,
Scandi furniture swept beyond the point.
The great night settles wraps coast and land,
for forty hours a stagger of centuries
turns on and off while tide and air detonate.
A fontanelle sun illuminates horizons,
a broken rainbow drifts. Under the peppermint gum
a ring tail possum is hard and cold,
the white point if its tail in exclamation.
I carry the form cradle like, beneath the longhand
of leafless silver birches now letters to a friend –
the paws folded in acolyte worship,
to a soft place beneath the strawberry tree.
Deep into mulch. A layer of sweet blossom and sour fruit
to delay the remorseless fox. The garage door incessant,
in dis chord of striking back and forth
and on a makeshift hassock ponder the reach
as birds chime renewal through a fog witness
the bleak erasure opening a hymnal surround –
unspoken things are laid to rest ancient trees lie shattered,
how light prevails in a fragile summons.
Tarra Bulga swing bridge Friends of Tarra Bulga National Park
James Walton Poetry 