Communing with Nature: part one
Rose
We called it Possum's Bridge
miniature trees sprouting
out of dead bark
I mean honestly we could have died right?
what with all the heights we climbed
in that little valley with
the creek just deep enough to swim in
the houses swallowed up in a horizon of trees
we'd take nothing but a bag of chocolate biscuits and strawberry milk
I remember one time you said
like I know there are axe murderers
and guys with knives, and stuff
but doesn't it feel like
nothing bad could ever happen here?
Dobby
was shaggy except
twice a year
he'd get his hair cut
in the laundry sink
then he looked like a cat
when he stretched
shorn fur
with little tufts
around his paws
Hunters 1
Termites crawl in and
take you inside out
stay gnawing until
you are hollow and
the shell breaks
danger, do you
Understand?
Reserve
one wire fence between
us and the llamas
we'd play on the giant tires
and try to coax them over
I got the closest but
he spat in my eyes
eighteen come home to visit I
had to bury my hands
Relentlessly digging
for I don't know
am hour
maybe but I couldn't
press down hard enough
with my knees so
nothing was satisfied
Scraps
sometimes we
left poems
and stories
in little hollows
off-the-track places
we treated them like a gift
to the spaces were in
like a safeguard against reality
some bullshit kids think about
a burrow or
maybe it just feels good
to share
(even though
a tree can't save you
darling it's a fucking tree)
Hunters 2
I kept my eyes shut until the second time
suprise! It's less overwhelming
when you know what's happening
but didn't you always know?
maybe. I think I felt it when I collapsed
down the side of the valley
in a series of loud cracks
I wasn't ready for a freefall
but when I reopened
I was a marsupial - a soft and
simple thing
Katoomba
They taught the little one
to say it too
she wound it around
her five year old tongue
when we walked through
the deep mining valley
and I stopped to
stare up at
a giant fern
she called after me:
"Jacinta! Stop
communing with nature!"
