bluestone

Here I sit in command of all that I survey,
In control, but in awe of all that I perceive,
For greater things have more power than me
With their sweeping axes stay, or surrender under
Or peacefully let what is living still live
With all the great men of history, I sit
For though their lives and what they’ve lost
We are all composite of those that have lived
And all of that which yet has not passed
I wonder if the men of force have ever held in thought
The authority which nature has upon them wrought
To see this orb of blue, change its range of varied hue.
The giant floating gods of dawn gather
In swiftly under the midday moon,
Of distant mountains disappearing into shadow
Of sunlight catching through breaks in clouds
Falling lightly on shadowed patches in hopes of rain
The constant breeze blows soft and cool
Which stirs the world in the late day noon.
The flesh-born, age-proof Morten Bay fig stands.
A testament against time and man
Split and racked the tall trunk rests on many feet
While searching fingers reach to feel the breeze
Which gently moves the dark green leaves

Its trunk gnarled straight as boughs bent long
With the heavy wind which has swept them by,
This quiet hill on high, long-men all stand waving
As the rise and the fall of the ground falls too
Grass freckled dark with shadows and whispers
Within the air of constant motion,
Two small moths, never still, dance across the hill.
Far below, the sun on water patches
Flowing silently beneath weeping trees
Their shadows hanging deep in the water
A broad liquid path winds past their feet
Stretching east to meet the horizon
Glimpsed here and there and caught in the act
Of turning blue, and brown, and dark
Past silent walls of blue stone light.
Edged in grey with shadows of the night.
The still trees surrender to the eastern breeze
Far off cattle graze silently, distant specks
On the rolling green downs of the valley’s plain.
Spotted with tall slender gums and electric poles.
The foothills gather running up and down
Till they rise up to my feet, lying away
Their endless blues crossed now and then
Silver lines strung from towers in the western sun
Gilded gods in imitation of the bunya pines
Who stand with their arms out spread
For the hold of a dark grey electric wires.
Crickets drill into the silence,
The air stands still in anticipation
Till the eastern wind breathes out again.
You can hear its sigh from a long way off
Gathering as it climbs till it just passes by
Tousling hair and brushing past my youth
While the sun sets down behind my back
Filling the gullies with its shadows
And making the trees grow long.
So ends this day and fills the blue with night
The warmth of white turns chill with shadow
And here sit I with this scene alone
Except for the call of the black bird’s mate
Which drifts in on the weakening breeze
The chill of evening turns thoughts to my ancestors
The father of my father’s dad and all the families since
Who’ve worked this land and all the lives it’s seen
And shall continue to do in our own right.