Dreams and Intimations

Here is the time for the sayable, here is its homeland.

Speak and bear witness. More than ever

the Things that we might experience are vanishing...

Rilke, The Ninth Duino Elegy.

Let it drop behind you, feel the pitch-black

bundle moulded so well to your figure

slip to the ground. Take a step or two,

its darkness dissipates, enters the pre-dawn

shadows of the hills and trees around.

Notice your traveller’s cloak, its rough

woven texture gathers light, is shot through

with threads of violet-grey and saffron.

The beginnings of blue break on the charcoal

brushed ranges, and the early light lends you

a sheen. Your step is the step of a younger

you, or perhaps the ground presses back

and offers to lighten your load a little. You

falter unused to such reception, and yet

the rhythm you settle on is both your whole

being and your nothingness. Ahead the light

brightens steadily, and shadows deepen

in anticipation of the day. Every place—

in the inky foliage printed on a paper sky;

on the surface of the rocks by the track;

in the dingo and wallaby scats—crouched,

is annihilation. Its intimations even take

root amongst the fine-leaved wildflowers,

as they prepare to make themselves visible.

At the end of this day’s walking, as you

descend from the hills, bring the sayable

things; let the pink and the blue orchids

travel within you. Later on a free-stone

wall, sparkling ale in one hand, Rilke’s

tender eye for death is the other.

Long listed for the Ron Pretty Prize 2106, published Broken Ground UWAP