‘The time is now’ as the clocks unwind
but those days are fallen far behind
lost already in the rear view mirror
and minutes feel like hours and hours
roll into eternity as we make our way
away from the city and from hollow symphony
until that distant brutal hum
is replaced by the cicadas’ relentless drum.
And yet, madness follows you.
A low clouded forest canopy ripples like a deep green lake
brushed by breezes heavily scented with flowering wattle
carrying the hint of distant camp fire and foreign song
gentle chords pulled from wood, wire and loss
while among the patchwork shadows lizards lounge
and lyre birds lull in the straggly scratch bush scrub
myriad littered leaves speckled with white mould
observing orange spirals of fungal spores crawling
along forest floors caterpillar trains intersect
with termite trails and centipede stampedes
and toads hunt frogs stalking lizards chasing fishes
in every clear crystal stream or muddied black creek,
we float in the arboreal sea, suspended in stillness
ancient monumental figs commanding, listening
absorbing sound, muffling the whip-bird’s whistle
and the bower-bird’s cry, the rustling of shuffling of jungle fowl
and our whispered half-thought awe, lost in the colonnade
these towering pillars older than our ancestors’ forebears
recalling the setting of a thousand suns before we spoke
and destined to outlast our farthest steps, our final words
and our last whispered breath.
While the rest of the world breaks down in half life instability
these deep hidden roots endure, grasping and entwining
compressing past and present together
and the canopy is always rising
bearing us, breathing us,
our worthless dust
our verse and lust
our unspoken intent
our eternal trust
the sweet forest gathers our tattered,
scattered and shattered remains,
inexorable and inexhaustible
ever onward toward a heavenly state
that our miserable species never earned
anonymous and disembodied at last
a holy place that we never deserved.
Our city lights are nothing against the myriad fires
of the very future suspended overhead
those shining points of brilliant white
cast across infinity in every direction
we are ash and mere atoms
ascending into orbit
insignificant yet definite
held together by the spaces between us
circling one another in harmonious chaos
disintegrated and unlimited
dispersing and unknowing
of the love the stars feel for us.
