Garden.

We wove some magic here.

Deckled trees with fairy dust—

the figments of our imaginations drew lines

between the sky

between the leaves

between the earth.

A white butterfly

—wandered, onward, captain of our fairy band—

buffeted by the breeze

took flight

and glittered flicking wings

into the sunlight.

He was like our memory

—allied and squandered to the air—

a captain captive to the passing currents

at rest on tides of drifting listlessness

buoyed on waves of sound—loud

reverbed from the earth itself

and beneath the ground dispersed to nothing but vibrations.

Caws of magpie on the branches of trees

beyond the fence-lines

called insistent, echoed

and, in flight, drew ever more away.

We left a fish adrift on the wall

—light-flicker, silver scales in the sun—

to tinker with our senses

breaking beams against one another in refraction

into parts.

We played colour against cousin

and deployed in every gesture of design

a symmetry of power in all things that’s mirrored

in perfection

by the most broken shook-up thoughts of early morning

when night’s break seems to slumber

beyond the restless sleepless soul.

Little carrions of life

—bearing sunshine as they went

light caught white upon their tiny wings—

darted, tumbled, climbed and flew

their circus one of circles through the sky

an endless repetition of their patterns

that went on gently till the nightfall.

We saw every tiny thing alight

—their edges made their edges

and at once made melting edge-to-edge—

their glimmered rims glimpsed through lashes

looked-at sideways

caught in sketches from the doorways

of the moments

only half-here and half-now.

Sky-shimmers, the lineaments

copied in colour to our files and stored in footloose memory

to make the fodder of our dreams

when distorted

cards shuffled

and re-drawn upon the pages of imagination sleeping.

 

We weave some magic here

sleeping awake

in day-dreaming

in slow reading

of the air.

Devices.

wait

 

a train passes

quietly whistles

whispers past

 

wait

in silence latent

 

another train passes

faster

 

wait

in mounting silence

with its beauty

latent

 

silent

gone

 

wait

in stillness

with its silent beauty potent

fragrant stillness

idly still

wait

 

and another train passes

and silence once broken

creaks achingly

shrieks

the ugly shriek of morning cockatoos

strewing seeds from the gum-tops

fretfully

shrieking

swooping wide white wings low over streets

with anxious shrieking

and shaking

as another train passes

rumbles

and another train

grumbles

sweeping silver streak

shrieking

creaking on the tracks

rumbles underground

the city groans

achingly

shrieks

the city groans

anxiously

speaks

in silent ugly words

scattered like seed by the morning cockatoos