Forever, you stand

There you stand, illuminated eternally by sunlight 

refractions that seep through the creases

of your palms made of eucalyptus bark.

You pour love with every thread of your being

embroidered with poems from ancestors of our land 

hoping it all won't spill into oblivion.

Golden Banksias, sunken roots, crimson bottlebrush forever

stain my tongue and the depths of the earth but

suddenly, you ebb away and lose momentum until

you can feel the wind made of smoke forever

tangle in your lungs that fray with paper-bark remnants.

Until you can feel the silhouette of factories and 

fresh cement chisel into your chest whose owners etch 

saw-dust lacerations in ghost gum trees, making you bleed.

Then, you wonder if country means anything at all. Still,

years later, you stand, interlocking your roots with 

the last fragment of the earth. And years later, cicadas ring in 

my chest and the afterimage of burnt orange monoliths lie forever 

in the canopy of my eyelids. I breathe your conviction and live

your endurance. So I stitch your roots into my skin, making you last forever.