In and of Itself.

Thin springs run parallel, like wrinkles,
From which reeds dip in limp salutation.
Like mourners, or the very polite.
Treeshadow leans long, the sun’s buckshot
tapers to the hikers eye, which looks on.

It longs to feel as one hand holding the other.
The snowgum and the rough knit of fingerprint,
The unspeaking rustle, without the word “unspeaking”
It wants green, near to the eye as memory.
To come up gasping, breathing out, not in.

It wants in short to have never come,
But to be pressed as a linocut from every little thing,
And hung.
To have the chill wind rush through,
And trace its edges, its curved boughs and thin leaves.

It does not want to describe, like dew in the morning.
It wants to rain, with a million fingers,
With whole arms. Elbows. Bones breaking
Into streams, the echoes in the still hills
Returning, the screams, unheard by fresh ears.