North of Moony Point
By Berndt Sellheim
Published 1 January 2021
Like the river is enough for us, no mind.
1.
Driven all summer
where the valley
drops green
rounding the bends
barbed wire paddocks
winding down to fifty
over culverts and creeks
following the Great North Road
when a blast of wind
cuts diagonal
down the valley line
north of Moony Point
and vision
sweeps out tide
shrinks to a pinhole,
to grain of sand.
A soul takes to heel
on escarpment stone
over rock-frocked lichen
beneath the moon’s coin
and we swing the vault
triangulate stars
tally the unassailable measure
between this place
and the one
we call home.
2.
Drowned in the last storm
a possum
or what’s left of it
becomes
furry marsupial tent
becomes
fairy home
for arthropods Silphidae
the hopping jumping
life of decay.
3.
And so we pass on
into things: not
indifferent technologies
this hyperspace blueprint
o self: no: raw substance
into: substance: thing
pass: literally.
Into. Things.
Bugs. Fruit.
Wind. Water. Fur.
Pass into
other skins.
Pass into
4.
Closest we mob get to corroboree.
Voice carried in water, wind.
To speak beyond our mouths.
Just as I fold into you
just as you
fold in
to landscapes
hollow space
one to one
one to each
driving through
the hollow of that voice.
We the living. We the dead.