as kids we danced in circles,

holding hands the gentle tug of arms would ripple

so we fell inwards

and outwards,

groggy with the game of gravity,

inwards and outwards,

and if we fell the circle would catch us  
you whisper: “there are stories in the stars”

and trace the belly of the Big Emu
your father taught you the arcs and names of the planets

and long after their empire has fallen

the Romans still conquer the night,

every night 
my stars are nameless,

the Milky Way a path for no-one, leading no-where,

a highway in the desert of the sky
it is the sum

of 1 and 1 and 1
we now dance alone,

imagine we live outside time,

on the tip of a line,

at the precipice of a new frontier
we walk in circles,

annotated in straight lines:

all crucifixes and fences 
you read in a book

that everything has a story —

a rock, and a road, and a river 
that nothing is orphaned from time
you walk by the stadium built on a marngrook ground

and the freeway that follows the songlines.