Some Portraits of Country

Some Portraits of Country
1.
The distant mountain
— inverted —
levitates above the horizon
2.
Overnight
boulders are raised on pillars
of ice
3.
Cumulus clouds bloom
out of a cobalt sky
plump as mould
4.
Cicadas emerge
from death masks
gleaming
5.
Bayonets of light
eviscerate the canopy of cumulus
A crow carks and departs
6.
Praying for rain
the shrubs offer
flowers
7.
A semi-circle of standing stones
hides in the shadow of song
and silence
8.
A murder
or an unkindness interrupted
rise over roadkill
9.
A shower of
fluttering wings startle
rippled rockhole reflections
10.
The watermark of a ghost
gum hangs in the mist
where a hill might grow
11.
The weight of cement
silences country — and yet
the leaves rustle
12.
A crow alights on an upper
branch — holds the tree upright
without effort
13.
The gloaming dusk creeps
up the glowing-orange cliffs
like gangrene
14.
Mountains meditate
in silence — their shadows
prostrate before them
15.
In the west
fragments of cloud dissolve —
All the rest is sky
