Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Summer in Three Places: Different ways of getting wet.


Melbourne


Sunfire over rippling sheen,

and the slow rock of low waves.

Boats bobbing on water, quiet and ignored.

The heat dreams between creaking trees,

and the imaginable cold and clean grasp

of bay water.

So you shine, and this whole slow-motion world of days

vanishes into you.

You're laughing at the seagulls.

You're dropping twigs onto the water.

You're breathing quietly in your cup

of air – the frame of your ribs

embraces your physical heart. An insect

traces arcs across still water near the pier

and the heat keeps pressing.



Sydney


madness. Unbuckled streets engine their own noise.

Familiar muscular roads bulge with cars

but not faces.

The freshly radiant leaf-world reaches and splashes

green between houses, flats. Water you can feel flowing, pushing

thickly through the air itself,

and just over the ridge of orange rooves, your strung wires

looping and lazy in the teary haze, and nearby somewhere:

The ocean massing her shoreline.



Near Byrneside


Fragrant life has muddy fingers, and when he jumps

he tucks his knees up under his chin. Splashing in

the cool brown channel, a scatter cloud of insects whooshes away.

You can smell the freshness of horseshit, and you silent on the bank,

rest into long, faun grass. He appears again,

shaking the water from his head, serious about climbing out

to jump in again. He is practicing for the Olympics, just in case

Channel diving ever gets put in, you never know.





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