Gumtree-Music

Country sounds like people. People sound like poetry. Poetry is music. Poetry is

Scratched letters in paperbark slivers down by some secret place

Behind the crunches of khaki and bare feet in dry leaves that fell from the canopy, the sky

I + U = the great big wide open space.

Hilltops and a hollered coo-ee -

Shallow stone skin dribbled by creek water

Or those beetle-eyed magpies, ears find their voice in the hollow wind

and growing through my eyes, gumtrees, roots all curled up within

Singing, sun-basking, blue-green glistening. Speaking. Always.

Words I could not tell you, tied into knots and woven into rivers

That overflow, reach my nose and my toes, and hide inside the cavity of my chest,

lines drawn between every living thing, the pen strokes in my notebook, the brush that painted me into existence,

And I stop. And stand before the music. And the wholeness of it all!

I cannot hold onto gumtree-music, the poem, the land and sun. Cannot write it into words and pictures and understand, but I will try forever,

for have you never beheld such a beautiful thing?