The conversation of trees, (Australia)

Words and sounds are passed through slim spear leaves
an arboreal breath that flits from bough to branch
well well well.
First to hear are lofted sage-like gums
that lean aside to listen in slow and studious bend.
Are you really really sure?
ask curious haughty ferns having bristled to return a bow
they shake their tangled fronds in considered revelation
what? what?
the laden Banksia breathes and topples nibbled combs
the crumbs of which vibrate and spin more news.
Yes yes yes affirm the tumbling Wattle twigs
and so the story passes on.
Amidst, the raucous Keets and naughty Too’s
dash in an out to claim their place
like urchins under dappled washday sheets
which crackle as the next words come.

© Graham Sherwood 2008 Australia

Cape Leeuwin, (Australia)

Before me they unfold
from upturned pencil palms and ironstones,
through khaki tussocked drinking-straw grasses,
both flaunting coyly with timeless eyes,
rolled out as if some ancient mariner’s charts
were left amongst the pristine sand and ivory surf,
a panoramic palette of navy, royal and soft grey blues
to silver-brilliant steel and turquoise marine,
the basking rendezvous where
both oceans kiss and lose their names,
beneath man’s brilliant pulse
they shun the pole
another lifetime’s world from here.

© Graham Sherwood Australia 2008

Local Man, (Australia)

I sense you slowly flit from gum to gum
in elegant balletic stance on leather toes,
ethereal,
I feel the inquisitive stroke of your furrowed stare
and smell your body’s heady resin paint
of dotted lines in fluid daub,
immersed within euphoric spying trees,
darting lizards, strange rainbow birds.
I hear your rhythmic guttural hum.
Do I frighten you, or you me?
Perhaps it’s better to stay there, safely hidden
don’t make a trade; this is still your land
and I hear its song,
as kangaroos bound across the sky.

© Graham Sherwood Australia 2008

Wake-up Call, (Australia)

Four birds
They have new visitors,
yes and I’ve seen them
wwwwooooooowwwwww!
ploink!
You sound like a dripping tap,
we all think this too but for differing reasons
and by 8 o’clock we are no longer news.
It’s Sunday, cedar fresh like last night’s welcome pinot noir
as bright sun ambles through to clean up the storm.
The fallen jackoranda blossom needs a brush
kookaburra and cockatoo natter and squabble
the day is here, the rest is gone

© Graham Sherwood Australia 2008

A poet's year

Apparition

And then, the imperceptible change of light
drapes my shoulders,
nestling like a virgin’s veil.
Its hazy, muslin, twilight patterns dance
before my earnest, narrowing eyes.
So, wandering and wondering
amongst the dimming creams,
and charcoal greys of dusk,
forty years just fall away.
He is here again,
and I know it’s time and turn to go.
But not before his ruddy hand taps lightly
on my sleeve, and strokes my neck.
“Time for home son, leave them here”.
And creels creak, reeds snap,
a distant whistle,
and I am alone once more.
The evening’s dampening aperture left
to heavily lie on my nostalgic gaze.

© Graham Sherwood 2007/8

New Year's Day

A grey veiled humour hangs on this New Year’s Day,
an unrehearsed pantomime I’m walking through,
wet hedgerows clipped, red berries broke,
squashed, scattered, lost amongst the uncut verge,
the dogshit and the broken glass.

As children scat down muddy slopes,
sodden wild clematis beards damply droop,
across the footpath and offer drips,
to bleary revellers as they stumble home,
in last night’s clothes.

© Graham Sherwood 2008