1
Mist cloaks the skyline. Vision frays, distance shrinks, shapes vanish, colours wane, songs dampen. Mounted on Blackbutts, Cockatoos gurgle, their blackness expunged.
Cobwebs veil the man walking through the garden which invents itself every day. A bracket fungus growing off the path wears a wizard’s hat. The flesh looks as tough as the wood it feeds on.
A sentinel stands to attention on the fire trail, attuned to the figure facing him who briefly aims, before looking away and continuing into the trees.
The kangaroo loses sight of the man now looking around at branches scrawling over pale air.
He appreciates difference, bends to study a bark painting. How do edible lines realign to art?
One New Year’s Eve, John Berger confirmed that lines are hard to make interesting. Cy Twombly is quoted as saying, ‘My line is childlike but not childish.’
Emerging from the forest, the man hears a voice, looks up and realises his photograph is being taken. He reciprocates. Love is best reciprocal.
2
The mist has lifted, clarity returns.
The Nyambaga traverses a silvered narrative of gulls and terns, a vigorous soundscape. The white scarf dresses Yarriabini. This is black Country. The communication masts transmit information, but shy away from their own foundations and the violent tale of Koala Dreaming.
The man overhears dogwalkers mention dolphins – he scans the waves, thinks of walking to the end of the sea wall, but feels too tired. He hasn’t eaten properly since Christmas Day when snared by the new H3N2 influenza A strain.
He smiles at the young mother pushing a pram, exchanges comments on the beautiful morning, freshened by overnight rain. Their conversation might belong inside this poem, words reveal moments. She takes a riverscape with her phone. I doubt an elegy has crossed her mind, or proof of the abundance of birds covering the spit.
Futures tangle and many are coming to their end. The man forgot to peer into the pram and shower complements. His eyes are raised. He is standing beneath five Galahs feeding on the Horsetail Casuarinas.
He has a wish to photograph at least one in this early luminance, porous to cheerfulness.
3
The new BBQ cover has arrived. Lifting off the ripped cover, a young possum, not the previous resident, stares back. He can’t read the expression. Life is wild, sometimes wilder. The man takes a couple of shots and quickly replaces the old cover.
4
Two Kangaroos bounce from the forest. The male and female look around ears swivelling, but they really want to eat. The poem watches them unseen. When the man moved here, he mentioned to a neighbour his pleasure in seeing kangaroos and was told, you’ll soon get bored of them. That hasn’t happened in fifteen years.
The man has little interest in ostranenie, the familiar always has surprises up its sleeve. It’s not as if his own history is familiar to him.
