Encomium boronia granitica
Anne Casey
You purple-tongue parched
air, dust-sieve to You tilt: yellow-eye amaranthine
sip afterbirth sky, divine
of stars. dirt, pious
spoors.
You stem brush
-fire, persist
desert You riff idle breeze,
scree. (fi)lament
lyrebird You grief black
shrieks. -throated finch,
sorrow wallum
frog.
You ossuary bettong, paradise
parrot, rat-roo, hopping
-mouse, dusky You rapture absence,
flying-fox. perfume silence,
perfect solitude, You shrine dayfrog,
ghost dark. eastern quoll, white
-footed tree
-rat.
You catacomb wombat,
dunnart, grass
-wren, leaf You who have Lazarused
-nosed bat. through planet
-ary shifts—
all of this
yet—how to resist blind
loons thick-fisting
for fools'
gold.
Note: Boronia granitica is an endangered wildflower shrub native to Australia; all of the animal species noted in this poem are indigenous to the same areas as this plant, and are already extinct or endangered.
This poem was first published in the light we cannot see poetry collection (Salmon Poetry 2021).
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