Winter City

"Winter either bites with its teeth or lashes with its tail"
attributed to a Japanese proverb


WINTER CITY

Standing in the outstretch of my mind
I could see eucalypts towering
Over wattle and sassafras. My ears
Recognising the sound of whip-bird and magpie,
The Creeks with their labyrinth waters;
Blood from earth into sea and forever.
And turning around into another hemisphere
Of unconsciousness there was the sky
Endless to the horizon courted by sun,
And clouds like tears; I began to wonder
Into what July song does this propose?
Waking, I realised bitumen and concrete
Is the pastoral: canyons of grey ungentle -
City emotions breathing cold, the wattles not yet.