The Seat of Oblivion

I am standing on a shelf of cities,
wooden houses with steep lawns,
high valleys where uncles live
and great forests on their tiptoes.

I am standing here with rain birds,
non-events remembered, events forgotten,
partial sadness impinging on Pacific breezes.

Turncoat hope, tacked up in the hem of my skirt,
sometimes lifted over rivers that probably shouldn’t be crossed—
‘Come up further,’ you say,
‘Remember the summit of the Remarkables.’

I look down at mercurial beaches and lime-green tussock,
shifting outlines of reef and the land’s final ledge,
wanting just to lean here a while and try believing.

I Can See the Poem in this Lifestyle Block

Setting into the far-flung sea, bush staggered over acres, a small holding. If you’re into Peace this is the place. Remind me how it goes; pulling back curtains to an infancy of space and wild trees, hawks adrift in pockets of wind. How to say moths shining in our lamplight or laundry in midair swinging is a dream as agapanthus blooms tall and startlingly purple on a bright day. And then silky nights, star strengthened resolve, hum of the world.