Rain Gauge

Suddenly puddles mark time,

scenes carved in a woodblock

suspended in the floating

world. Rain defines and

softens the contours of day.

Growth magnifies seconds

in droplets.

 

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Winterless

Still the sun sears through trees

made porous by autumn’s trace

and birds pause their flight.

Rain long gone, ponds dip low,

umbrella trees buzz and tagetes

paint the patch.

 

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Seasons

Days vacillate

between seasons

 

a tree both stark

and green

 

an avenue of autumn

sweeping past

 

currawong arrives early

like dusk

 

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Fire Sky

The drought continues

even as leaves

speak of autumn.

 

Mining the land

speaks of leaves.

More trees are leaving,

felled forests of life.

 

We have become

the surface planet,

surface hard, brittle.

 

Imagine the jobs

to replant our patch

so that it becomes

the planet it was.

 

I digress: tonight

bush burning

turned the dusk

to fire

 

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Morning lights

In a moonless sky

time travels back

to us as light,

showers us with

the brevity of speed,

passes us by

in silence

as we revolve,

and resolves

to look out

for this one

earth

 

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Cosmos

I grow a green frame

around my patch,

plants climbing

towards a flotsam sky.

 

Off the new highway

greenless and treeless

and even leafless,

without the brush

and scent of sage

or a camellia dawn,

living in shadows,

people,

pale from windblown pollution.

 

Yet even there

where the horizon

changes from green

to grey

cosmos finds a way

to grow in concrete.

 

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in which a season settles

I set off to sweep the path

so that nobody would slip.

The old broom rustled and

dipped scattering autumn

calm on a branch of sun

until sure enough, a leaf

cloud settled into mulch

 

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