Hume Highway

Browsing eucalypts near Yass

searching trunk-spines for new releases

my jump-eye lands on a tree

in a field of grass.

Base to canopy, whole tree in draft

my memory is activated: keep this one.

In the vertical push of light on limbs 

I skim passages of bark––

quick epiphanies, brevity of circles

and the tree is gone. 

I try to reconstruct it 

from libraries of leaves passed

and footnotes of fallen branches––

I dog-ear shadow-shows of yellow box

on granite-erupted hills.

The eucalyptus stands and stand-alones 

are written in fire and rain

are surrounded by grasslands 

and sheep in shaded rounds

and roadside pieces in scatter.