between breaths
“Nothing more beautiful under the sun than to be under the sun”
Walt Whitman
On one of those chill winter days
when rugged up in your woolies
you don’t mind it being such –
with stay of azure sky’s low sun
an in-breath of wildness to interrupt
day to day mindset
distant ring of the honeyeater
a creek tinkles gold glint
tones of green all beckon
into a world charged with a Hopkins vibe
sienna beacons of banksia
enlivening the way
sturdy trees usher us onwards
some ramrod sentinels
others lazed-back like friends
free in size and shape
red gum turpentine iron bark
peppermint scribbly gum
thickened roots flow like treacle
into rock crevices
white trunks with stories to tell
their scribbled language intrigue
suddenly crunch crunch in the undergrowth
alerts us to wallabies
that bump bump bump away
we miss their peering eyes
but so happy they are here
deep in the forest we find a spot
in a clearing for our picnic.
magpies warble their presence
a brush turkey befriends us
two kookaburras entertain our stay
one like a zen buddhist on the bough above
the out-breath of wilderness comes
reluctantly
like the end of a symphony
that holds you in its other world
Some surprises y in the undergrowth
