in childhood

                                    we read the landscape

                        in a different language
            rode the curves

                        of yellow gully

                                    alive with wattle
                        and it was flower nectar

            tapped onto open palms

licked clean
            my brother armed with

                        spear and arrow and story

                                    and fists full of hair
                                                my pockets dragged with

                                    moss and river rocks and rhyme
                        and the clouds full of song

            admitted that everything began

with the sun at which we squinted