Styx River bora ground I descend steeply with knees grinding down a spur of accrued footsteps towards the Styx, walking beyond woe and lamentation, past fire rivered through the trees, leaving charcoal spaces where distant glimpses of the valley are placed in my mouth. Five wild cattle. White cedar. Cockatoo. There is forgetfulness to wade through; life binding oaths lost to place and care amongst the topographical blur of lines sliding the river nearer. History is no comfort beyond the ridges and deep where I drink greedily, lose my voice for nine desperate years because the only word left in the world is river— speaking it does not give patience enough to smooth granite or greywacke in the long run of debris from the big fresh that rummaged gullies for words and truths and found the language of ghosts. Be suspicious of a river murmuring like the drowned when crossing as the living because preceding you were those who dipped, who danced, yet remained vulnerable, who left nothing but a circle of grass amongst the trees.
Ghosts My footsteps rustle fallen leaves the sound repeats on rock earth bank and rosewood as I brush past a prickly tree fern. It feels like I am being tracked, by a ghost, to the left, over my shoulder, its footsteps, its shirt against the foliage. Could be my ghost, testing this place, seeing if it is a nice spot to haunt when the time comes, testing its skill outside my body. There is another ghost and it is smell. When you get home from a bushwalk the forest has infiltrated your clothing, skin, backpack, there is a musty sweetness when I open the cupboard door, a week later, it wafts out and I wait a while to unpick your scent of nature from the fabric of my self. Like the echoes we hear at home in the evening sitting quietly in the warm lounge room. You are reading the day's paper, I've got my notebook open, it’s dark outside. The television is off, all the windows are closed. Everything is pleasantly hushed and then you look up and say, what was that? I say what was what? You say, did you say something? I say no. You look confused but I didn’t speak. I wonder if you heard the ghost of a different moment