#298 - take the Gore Cove Track to Berry Island

 

17. x.20

298

take the Gore Cove Track to Berry Island

 

weekend trackwork

(a tribute to all the bush carers)

 

 

along the track today

and blocks of hewn stone stepping

trunk carved from the weather

creek this many days from rain

 

take the gully slide

 

all shimmer tips

a dead gum rise

ripple in the stone

to sway the eye

mind where you step

 

mind the green

a creek over the hoofing

befronded in the underleaf

once was all this bluegum

 

from Beencke’s Bridge

(or it was)

 

down we go

to the mudflats now

frogs are sleeping off the night

someone swims in, an explorer

 

are the old names gone together?

who first then? last?

 

magic to have the moment still

there’s no one washed the rocks along

 

but things are cast ashore aside --

the engine block

and where are the gears?

imaginary anchors

who was it carved these slots to post?

 

high callings then as now

look! tell yourself at least

 

how many branches to the sky here?

and who can see so far?

who will find a flannel flower?

 

call all to witness how I go

as tendril, of the light impelled

a double back, a zigzag

and tenderly over these so many homes

 

who was it heaved the creek from boulder?

followed the shade in this never-a-line?

 

twist with the track

take handle to steady

ball and heel

bounce on

 

attention!

notice the falling about and apart

cloud random

and drift

all rise!

 

with sun caught still

call so many colours

all the one leaf

now fallen

 

it’s here we are and who knows how?

could it possibly matter?

 

go on along anonymous

with ‘afternoon’

and ‘how are you?’

 

track wide as skink skitter

and ‘lovely’

 

a birdmidst

tangle vine

up down to see

 

we go as far as we’ve come

 

who’s singing now to top the trees?

 

come dusk in call it forest

 

who stands the stillness listening?

shall we?

 

a dogeared wood

lick, turn

 

all afoot

the track chimes

 

in every tree direction

fern and follow

birds nest

 

a shielding and a sidelong glance here

 

so many weddings and funerals I’ve missed

and there’s a folding forth -- fern weather

 

then creatures less than seen

will answer

form a cone like smoke

 

far from day still lit with

makes me bellows

so propelled

and selfless to be here

 

words disappear

and I in them

 

mind the green

all the while hiding

like time untold

 

by gully come to cove

grey mangrove

 

and soon the bats flit

dark to corners

shy antechinus groundlings haunt

 

kind of place

you find a poem

to vanish where day goes