HERMIT IN THE HOOP PINE (THE GOODNIGHT SCRUB, QLD)
hoop pine crowd the goodnight scrub:
deep peace makers/ lifting limbs like
palms of emerald tufts & agate green/
where once, if your cattle got loose
in it, you could kiss them goodnight/
now hoop pine emerge past the peach
bend of tracks on ridges & hilltops/
they keep secrets from me/ i come
hurtling in from the bruce highway
& midway into the scrub i find/ autumn
edged corrugated iron tangled in
introduced stranglers/ & the sudden
appearance of hermit treading lightly
in the goodnight/ the moonless sky
his intimate cavern/ satellites streak
overhead like white paint splashed
in slow glow worm threads that connect
them to the treetops/ & the hoop pine
that were daytime camera friendly lean
strangely/ do not disturb him: he is
hermit/ his old world story in the
confused & alien centres of dead
insects on his window ledges |
