Science  Write  Now

In the space

we inhabit

one burnished


afternoon, we sip

a taste of silence

from  an autumn

of silences:

faithful and bright, full

of images and words


like skeletons of powder

hulks with crowns of mangrove hair.

As the golden hour


blooms, tinged with aubergine,

a shiver          along the water-glass

almost breaks our spell. Each step


is incantation:
a stilt, a turn, a black swan pair

paddle poetry,


dreams. When the chorus warms

—arpeggios for the show—

of ‘word bells’ and wattle-birds

who know the pace of poem-time

who know the promise of afternoon

lines —             the ripple


of this light —

we fix to stay

forever; feather


our minds

with baubles

against a northern wall;


suspend our home

across a watercourse

catch forgotten


lines / ‘break the skin

on the pool

of ourselves’


every sounding

afternoon. As the orchid sky

flies over, we


scribble birds

whispered words

in a tesserae of light;


that knows the pace of poem-time

that knows the promise of afternoon lines;


in the last of this red hour

in this cathedral of song.