Out of the morning—

the yawning blue, sleepy-eyed

morning where the leaves rustle

like bed-clothes and the fence-post crows

drip rippling notes

into the steeping silence—

rushes the wind.
I stand stooge in the paddock—dozing a dream

of childhood paddocks: long grass subsides

beneath the sun; the thistle bristles

its prickled crowns, claims its brief footsore territory; crickets weave

a gauzy haze of sound and

off in the encircling stands of flooded gums the call

of the whip-bird falls

and falls

and falls
when the wind comes—scything the grass

into her arms like the past—
she tousles the trees, shakes

the cows from their sleep-ins:
herds of clouds stampede the sky,

a water dragon, posed like weathered wood on

a weathered log, skitters away—dappled

skin into dappled shadow—and the river

murmurs feebly over the rocks before swallowing

its words—until all I can hear

is the wind—roaring

through the treetops like a new world.