Nannup Diary
do you see the river as spittle?silence, staves unplayed,bracken its own language
tuarts in their ragged tweeds,small birds plucking.see the river as spittle?
leaves shushing their names,light gone sepia, hinting at moisture,bracken's lyrics in slang
car roars across what was.thinking with bark?settles, yes, the river
these unwet days, hankeringfor rain, sky closing,bracken sounding betweens
necessity here, sanctity,where ends the understory?bracken's the hours unheard.river sits, rippled
dear hoist
dear hoist,still standing? still spinning?still lapped by buffalo?we loved you. weren't allowed toof course. but we did.draped over, swung from,cranked up and down,merry-go-round on green sea.Mum's peeling carrots voice piercingthe flywire. we loved youyou arthritic backyard myth
when a grasshopper
when a grasshopper landed on my study window last summerI looked at it for long enough to leave the page andclimb inside and fly and feel the thrill of wheat ripplingbeneath my wings and the beauty of panoramic visionand wonder of touch through antennae and joy atbeing able to jump two hundred times my height andrub my thighs behind my back and ohif only my yoga class could see me now, but
the couch diet got so tedious andovernight flights so wearisome and my rear legs achedand male sensibilities protested atbeing left to do all the clicking and mating displaysso I climbed back through the study windowbecause writing is much easier
wheatbelt
from the wicker chair on the verandahlift your eyes abovethe balustrade, see how heatwhitens the day,hear the easterly stirring the peppermint leaves,the screech of pink and grey galahs as theyfeed in the shade of the ghost gum.hold this tree.feel its smooth cool torso, then riseand drift across fields brown as lager,follow the rumble of trucks into townwhere sun glints off rusted tin andthe wind works like sandpaper on the bricksin the old silo. now lift againand rest on the burnt bones of the tuartson the ridge as a raven scapes its crythen drowns in blue.finally, run your hands across these wheatfieldsand remember the blanket of fabric scrapsunder which you slept on this verandahand know that this land won't bleed ifyou cut it, and it won't crywhen you leave
a vertical moment
laying bricks. all thedrunken things, everythings.
ritual is physicalrhyme, but, upside down
in the dark, all theconsonants dancing.
a much younger plant, moresupple. mother's words? don't like
home for