For The Taking

Brian Davis

Aware of the sudden isolation I stopped;
At my feet a tiny stream; a mere trickle of
laughing, gurgling water in its dark-green,
slippery channel of mossy rock.

Kneeling to drink I thought I heard
the heartbeat of silence; illustrated in the
fussy little fantail that flittered like a
dark leaf blown in the autumn
wind; imagined in the double-crystal
notes from the bellbird perched unseen in
its belfry of sombre kahikatea.

Slowly rising from my thirsty prayer,
looking upwards through the cloistered
leaves toward the chinks of blueness,
something held my eye.

A vine, ablaze with rata, pulsing
triumphant colour out and across
the river to the thick bush-nothingness beyond,
reminding those who saw it that
perfection is a rarity, but when it
comes it's least expected, and if
you want it, no questions need be asked.