Here I am

Striking out for the plains when I hear

Low and lulling from the underground

The call to lay down arms and

Sink into the lavender

 

Nectar of forgetting singing sweet

Earfuls buzzing

Forever can wait

I know that old tune

 

Invisible in the trees,

Currawongs call warnings of never waking

I cannot decipher

if they are addressing me

The ferns are soft underfoot but I am wary

Of the ticks they conceal

Who wait to pierce and pucker my hide

 

In the foothills, I can forget

Myself in thoughts and almost

Overshoot into the slippery slopes

of the lowlands

Where I have been lost for days before

 

What does my map say?

These features are not shown

Where is the sun on a cloudy day?

I only wanted rest,

An easier way down

 

The longest falls are from

Cliffs with the clearest views

So I keep myself from edges

 

But I have dropped backwards into air

A spider on a line,

Moved by only two fingers and a fistful of spun oil

I have tasted abyss

With toe-tips and tingling hips

Lived more through these death-arresting falls

 

Only once safely descended

Unharnessed and relaxed

The call sounds again

The lovely notes pushed from a goat’s horn

Twisting in the air

 

Is it you playing to me?

Or the pretender,

Stealing snatches of your tune?

Is it only the melody that matters,

Or the harmony I am humming?

 

 

I rise, shaking blossoms from my hair

In the hot afternoon sun

The incense of leaves wavers over the hills.