WILLOW DREAMING
Drought’s my season; red earth
The soliloquy. Even
This creek-bed’s cut its losses.
Moribund crab-apple, you recognize
My skull – your old playmate -
Gone dissonant with haze.
Churlishly, I once believed
I could douse fire up
And fan it back again
But – I am no overlord. The odd
Monsoon puts quiet to that.
Born victims, let’s not forget
Our origins. Too adroitly fate’s
Equated to obstinacy;
Deliverance grounded on hearsay.
Still, the moon’s stark full of mystery
And land’s aging evermore.
I salute us with dust, with passion
- Watch the miraging rivers run.
SCORE
This motel. Room service.
She is no more than
Sixteen; has freckles,
And tells
Back at the farm
It’d be near-on milking time.
Back at the farm
The cock’d be
Winding down,
The sky alive,
The sun lengthening.
‘Your family?’ I ask.
Dead, she says...
OPENING THE COFFERS
Trying to walk it off
- The chaos
Of an un-natural
Human world,
The mind’s footprint
Wanders further
Than any
Straight or narrow
Nemesis –.
I felt the early
Lick
Of the sun –.
Saw
The slow sidelong
Passing
Of a wolf
With
The moon
In his teeth.
Bionote
Stefanie Bennett has published many books of poetry, a libretto, and a novel. Over 40 plus years she has acted as a publishing editor, tutored in The Institute of Modern Languages at James Cook University and worked with Arts Action for Peace. Of mixed ancestry [Italian/Irish/Paugussett-Shawnee], she was born in Townsville, Queensland, Australia, May 6, 1945.