Early Winter, June storm
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.
Wisconsin
The snow came today
out of the whisper of your three syllables
a closed fist grey sky
the only break a slight vein of blue
A gloved horizon peeks
Limousin bellow hoary frost breath
a cranky central plateau displeasure
Friesians stomp in their wooden austere way
The house cow eyed for warm hands
a hoof raised for measure
in sepia prehensile alarm
my thumb and finger cajoled away
thick Jersey milk kissing into the dented bucket
The hay bike stuttered
unwilling to wake into this
ice breaks to the mallett
he water trough loosed for the taking
and I have no idea why I thought of you
the words just falling this way
from a once silent meditative plain.
Brushstrokes IV Ros Spencer Poetry Contest Anthology 2023, WA Poets Publishing Perth, Western Australia 2023 selected by Colin Young.
James Walton Poetry 