Through whispering green reeds the skiff is pushed
to grey, unruffled waters wide and cold.
Beyond the creek the heavy woods are hushed,
where willow branches hang in smoke of gold.
The water-lilies close their petals bold,
like little fists upon the silent deep;
yet in the dark the yellow iris hold
their glowing flag-cups on the shaded steep.
Smooth bowls of sunlit oil awake from sleep,
against the alders burning clear and bright;
above the mud where sunken shadows creep,
they lift their yellow torches to the light.
The marshy bank is fringed with sullen grey,
where cups of living gold outstare the day.

Through reeds of green the wooden hull is pushed
to grey, unruffled waters cold and flat.
Beyond the creek the willow fringe is hushed
in yellow smoke above the river-mat.
The water-lilies close their petals at
the fall of light, like knuckles on the deep;
beside the alders on the silted plat
the yellow flags their curved dimensions keep.
Smooth bowls of oil along the shaded steep
burn yellow without flame against the gray;
above the silt where sunken currents creep,
they hold their pigmentation to the day.
The water-margin carries sullen reed,
where open cups of sulphur yellow bleed.

He dips the timber in the silent tide,
and pale, blue-green eruptions tear the dark.
From dripping blades the icy splendours glide,
to wake the oily surface with a spark.
No common splash disturbs the shadow stark,
but melted jewels scattering on the swell;
where oars pull through, they score an incandescent mark,
a seam of fire within the ocean well.
Beneath the crust the ink-black currents dwell,
yet every stroke uncurls a living flare,
as if the deep had opened up its cell
to show cold lightning smouldering in the lair.
The boat cuts onward through the silent bay,
and leaves a track of burning frost away.

The lifted timber leaves the moving tide,
and pale, blue-green eruptions break the dark.
Across the blade the fluid flashes glide,
to wake the oily surface with a spark.
No common splash disturbs the shadow stark:
a drift of cold, unburning spangles thrown;
where oars pull through, they score an optic mark,
a seam of phosphorus within the zone.
Beneath the surface black as polished stone
the brine is sheared along the passing keel;
the cold discharge of living light is shown
in tracks of aqua-marine along the steel.
The wood cuts onward through the silent bay,
and leaves a seam of ignited frost away.

The summer borders bake beneath the skies,
where spicy carnations in the heat expand.
The great dark cloves with heavy heads arise,
too rich with colour for the leaf to stand.
Their split green calyxes can scarce command
the ragged petals bursting almost black;
he crushes one against his cheek and hand,
to breathe the fiery clove upon the track.
A dry, fierce perfume beats the senses back,
drugged with the fury of the midday sun;
drunken with syrup on the crimson stack,
the crawling bees through fiery petals run.
A burning harvest open to the air,
that tears its heart to show the richness there.

The gravel borders bake beneath the sky,
where cloves expand their petals in the glare.
The dark and heavy calyxes untie,
split open by the volume centered there.
The ragged petals crowd the midday air,
dyed purple-red toward the edge of black;
a dry, hot resin which the cells prepare
is driven outward on the garden track.
The scent of crushed eugenol beats the back
of summer heat above the stony bed;
heavy with sugar from the crimson stack,
the crawling bees move through the open head.
The flowers split their casings in the heat,
and drop their ragged pigment at the feet.

Above the dusky hill the harvest moon
lifts huge and golden on the empty height.
Across the stubble, working not too soon,
they bear the sheaves within the silver light.
The papery shocks of pale gold rustle bright,
whispering dry secrets in the open air;
sheaf leans on sheaf against the frosted night,
touching their heads together, pair by pair.
In rhythmic circles moving mute and bare,
they build dark monuments across the plain;
no spoken sound disturbs the silent stare
that pours cold brilliance on the bundled grain.
The field stands gathered in the luminous frost,
where every shadow of the day is lost.

Across the stubble hill the lunar plate
lifts yellow-white above the level ground.
Two moving figures lift the dry, dead weight
of gathered wheat into a standing mound.
The stalks of brittle cellulose resound,
with papery rustle in the cooling night;
sheaf rests on sheaf along the furrowed round,
paired head to head within the wash of light.
In repeated circles through the field of white
they raise the shocks against the empty air;
no spoken sound disturbs the optical site
where radiation strikes the bundles bare.
The cut straw whitens on the stubble field,
where mineral light falls on the dried-out yield.

Stone after stone he flings into the pond
to crush the white reflection on the deep;
the shattered light leaps shivering beyond,
in agonizing convulsions that will not sleep.
Like some bruised jellyfish compelled to weep,
its pale tentacles writhe in liquid pain;
torn into ragged sparks the waters leap,
yet bleeding fire, it gathers back again.
No blow can kill that luminous domain;
the broken embers draw their scattered light,
until the knot of silver seals its reign,
reformed and whole against the frantic night.
The dark pool rocks with cold, triumphant glare,
and leaves the hunter staring in despair.

A stone thrown inward strikes the water-face,
and shears the white reflection into parts.
The disk dissolves across the muddy space;
in white, divided tentacles it starts.
The disrupted image over ripples darts,
a radial web of light across the pond;
as surface tension clears the centered darts,
the rings contract and draw the light beyond.
No strike can break the planetary bond:
the waves subside, the liquid levels close;
the scattered fragments to the plane respond,
and knit their edges where the ripple rose.
The pool regains the stillness of its floor,
restoring the cold ellipse as before.

Between the mountain wall and ebbing spray
the crowded lemons touch from side to side.
Like clustered folk they lean, in solid gray
and thick green groves along the ocean wide.
Dim women in the under-shadow hide,
as if in sunken reefs beneath the foam,
while fallen fruit in sulphur heaps abide,
pale primrose fires that smoulder in the loam.
Soft naked trunks of greenish hue are home
to pallid burning in the leaf-choked air,
where coal-red oranges ignite the dome
and lemon stars speck out the branches bare.
A firmament of fruit, so thickly spun,
to quench a distant nation in the sun.

Between the mountain wall and saline spray
the crowded lemon branches meet and cross.
A dense, unbroken canopy of gray
and acid-bearing boughs shuts out the moss.
Dim workers moving in the under-loss
strip fruit beneath the shaded leaves below,
where sulphur-colored mounds the soil emboss
like pale yellow nodules on the row.
The smooth green timber anchors boughs that grow
thick with pale oval rinds of bitter grease;
in darker leaves the orange clusters show,
while lemon stars through shaded vaults increase.
The orchard lines the narrow coastal plain,
bearing cold citric acid in the grain.

Along the ridge the silent country lies,
an ancient presence subtle and profound;
no human sorrow in its hollow sighs,
nor footprint marked upon the unploughed ground.
The peeling gums in ghost-pale bark abound,
like naked limbs that motionless remain;
they heed no settler on the lonely mound,
indifferent to his labor and his pain.
At twilight comes a shadow on the plain,
an unshaped spirit watching from the blue,
that waits until the alien tools are vain,
and white intruders vanish from the view.
The continent retains its patient breath,
older than memory, untouched by death.

Along the sandstone shelf the scrub extends,
an unworked timber on the coastal rise.
No human mark upon the slope descends,
nor cleared acreage beneath the empty skies.
The smooth and peeling angophora lies
with bark shed clean in pale, flesh-tinted wood;
the canopy of grey-blue foliage dries
above the weathered stone where iron stood.
At dusk the shadows thicken in the hood
of dark-trunked banksias on the ridge-top line;
the roots hold fast within the sterile mud,
unmeasured by an agricultural sign.
The eucalypts remain along the stone,
standing in bark and resin on their own.

The great green rollers gather from the deep,
and curl their crests against the southern strand;
with roaring crash they break the coastal sleep,
in blinding sheets of froth upon the sand.
The hollow blows reverberate the land,
and shake the shale beneath the pounding foam;
a drift of salty smoke on either hand
drifts inland where the sea-birds never roam.
Out on the dark horizon lies no home:
an ink-blue desert, desolate and wide,
where unlived centuries beneath the dome
roll onward with the unregarded tide.
The monstrous water thunders day and night,
and drowns the headland in its savage white.

The long green swell approaches from the deep,
and trips its crest against the coastal bank;
with concussive fall the lifted waters sweep,
dispersing white emulsion on the flank.
The hollow thud against the shale is frank,
vibrating through the rock beneath the foam;
fine salt-aerosol drifts wide and rank
inland across the sandstone and the loam.
Out on the sea-line under empty dome
the water moves in dark, bathymetric swell,
bearing no current that resembles home,
nor surface sign where human vessels fell.
The shore is battered by the marine thrust,
reducing sandstone platform into dust.

No golden warmth descends upon the plain:
a white and blinding hammer strikes the crest,
a dark-cored sun that beats with heavy pain
upon the plateau’s dry, exhausted breast.
The shadows drop like lead upon the west,
while blinding dust obliterates the trace;
by charcoal heat and burning air possessed,
the phantom figures move with sullen pace.
A prehistoric fury fills the space,
distilled from blood and subterranean stone;
it drains the colour from the mountain’s face,
and leaves the naked desert to its own.
The sky leans down, an unremitting weight,
to seal the province in its ancient fate.

No cloud relieves the arid mountain crest:
a white and focal thermal core beats down
upon the dry, unwatered basalt breast,
baking the silted valley cracked and brown.
The shadows drop like carbon on the town,
while alkaline white dust is stirred in space;
the atmosphere is dried without a crown
of moisture rising from the baked clay base.
A mineral glare possesses all the place,
reflected from the fractured ironstone;
it drains the spectrum from the plateau’s face,
leaving the chalk and dried obsidian bone.
The noon maintains an unremitting heat
over the volcanic gravel and the sheet.

High on the mountain ridge the great pines stand,
above the pale and sunken desert floor;
their resinous pillars guard the savage land,
where human step was never heard before.
The red fallen needles carpet deep and bore
a slippery floor across the steep incline;
their bitter fragrance drifts forevermore,
a sharp and turpentine-distilled design.
Against the crag the bristling branches twine,
defying frost and summer’s dry excess;
they ask no care, they worship at no shrine,
content within their savage loneliness.
A realm of timber standing dark and proud,
above the drifting of the summer cloud.

High on the granite shelf the pitch-pines grow
above the pale alluvial plain beneath;
their timber stands against the mountain blow,
shedding dead needles on the stony heath.
The resin coats the underlying sheath
of dried red humic acid on the slope;
the turpentine distillation holds its teeth
against the desiccating mountain scope.
The rigid branches on the granite cope
interlock their fibers in the thin, dry air;
the scrub-oak roots within the fissures grope,
anchored in clefts of fractured feldspar bare.
A belt of timber on the rock incline,
secreting pitch and amber on the line.

The heavy rain pours down through alder boughs,
soaking the clay into a shining paste;
no human step the dripping glade allows,
where running storm-rills wash the forest waste.
The naked birches, slender and unlaced,
gleam pale as polished silver in the gloom;
the smell of crushed green fern and wild earth, chased
by summer lightning, fills the woodland room.
No iron gear, no coal-pit’s sullen fume
can pierce the shelter of the hemlock break;
the water-smoke obliterates the tomb
that men and wheels of iron strive to make.
The wild earth drowns in elemental spray,
and washes all the modern dust away.

The rain descends through alder bough and leaf,
turning the clay into a running paste;
the water drains without delay or brief,
carrying dark loam across the woodland waste.
The wet white birch-trunks, slender and unlaced,
reflect pale silver in the under-light;
the scent of broken ferns and humic taste
fills the closed basin after storm and night.
The canopy shuts out the surface sight
of colliery chimneys on the outer ridge;
the falling water drowns the valley white,
soaking the loam beneath the alder bridge.
The rain saturates the forest clay,
and carries all the topsoil silt away.

Along the grassy ridge the ocean gale
blows sweet and pungent from the Tuscan sea;
with mint and thyme it cleans the open dale,
where crumbling mounds retain their mystery.
The ancient tumuli sleep quietly,
under the wild and nodding asphodel;
their masonry decays beneath the lea,
content to let the green turf guard them well.
No Roman shadow or sepulchral spell
disturbs the meadow sloping to the bay;
a light-heart peace upon the hillocks fell,
that knows no fear of darkness or decay.
The dead sleep softly in the ocean air,
with salt and summer grass around them there.

Along the limestone ridge the sea-wind blows,
bearing sea-salt across the coastal grass;
the scent of thyme and wild origanum goes
over the mounds of porous tufa mass.
The round stone tumuli through centuries pass
under the roots of pale, wild asphodel;
the structural masonry decays like glass,
reclaimed beneath the turf and sodden dell.
The subterranean chambers in the fell
hold painted stucco on the crumbling wall:
red iron-oxide leopards leap to tell
of pigments holding in the earthen hall.
The limestone mounds erode beneath the sky,
where grasses root and salty breezes dry.