4. KURRAJONG TREE WITH THE WARM BRIGHT HAT OF LEAVES
the creamy timbered kurrajong tree wears the warm bright hat of leaves,
out along the western side of the great dividing range, as far north as coonabarabran,
its wood is light and malleable, of an open-natured texture, no matter what the weather,
with a softwood interior and the heart of green, it helps me forgive the idiots,
this planetary blaze on the large pink trees with the purple grey networks,
this living skin for the rain to run down, to soak into the feet and moisten the hat,
of kurrajong leaves brighter than a desert,
if I'd had the branches of the kurrajong tree wrapped around me as a baby,
I would have ventured much farther out into the world than I have,
knowing that worlds away the bottle tree branches would be warm and stable,
something to fall back into when I was tired, but there was no-one,
the fruit had opened early, to reveal the fatty seeds, embedded in a mass of prickly fibres,
so I developed the tight grey bark of the trunk, a drought-resistant fibrous inner bark,
and no one ever once looked at me with love in their eyes until I got a dog,
but still I came to life, in a stand of kurrajongs on the red brown earth and rocky hilltop,
the clouds broke through the sun to pour their rainy light on me,
beneath the bright warm crowns and opalescent shade of kurrajong trees in a cluster,
once I ventured far enough away I never went back,
the old bottle tree provides good shade and rests in silence through my thirty frosts
and in the end, myself, the sun, the nectar, the broad ripe fruit |
