Whistling up Birds at Blackheath
'Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life.' - William Stafford
i. Heading South
People change and it seems, by degrees
imperceptible over decades. In this place
the small 'i' looks into flight theory,
for a bird out of season. Life as a rule
consists of evidence, the gentle breeze
or the gale force, it leans on faith
towards chance with the family,
the friends or the lovers you take
a shine to. A belief that no amount
of change alarms, if the people
you love change with you.
But the saddest day is the one
where you find you've changed too
much and they not nearly enough.
ii. Wing Stretch
The log fire burns, all through
a sleepless stretch of evening.
The small 'i' re-working words
is hemp-loose, as ideas fall
with the passions onto paper.
At 6 a.m. the body exhausted, walks
outside smoking another one.
Plumes tickle and rise in the head,
drift from the hand and the mouth.
There's a mounting chatter of birds all
about, they rustle and stir in the bush
behind. Drawn closer, no doubt
by the sweet stench that floats
thick, in Kanimbla's sub-zero air.
iii. Air Spirals
It's the vertigo and the wind
that gets me, holds me reticent
just one step away from the edge.
From the top of this plateau,
it's a sheer drop into silence and
the cavernous mystery beneath.
The valley is fluted in layers of mist,
a scene stealer for the tourist and
the small 'i' alone on the stone
ledge of so vast an expanse.
Catching my wits and my breath,
I recall a friend having said, that
a woman mountaineer once
saw god on K2's summit.
iv. Weightless Flight
There's experience in that possibility,
in that solitary view of the infinite.
Precipitation clears from the valley
as birds and bird song, wing
through the sun-filtered clouds.
And just beyond the falls,
two iridescent rainbows form
these perfect tri-colour arcs.
The sky is winter-blue and enormous.
The small 'i' subdued, watches day
pass and the sun shine on the valley.
Considers how easy the choice
to take one step out and glide
weightless on air currents.
v. Tail Feathers
Vegetation grows lush all the way
down through the Megalong.
The car winds the slim web of road
until it flattens out into scrub country.
Horses graze close to the Tea Rooms
where there's hot food and a fire.
This valley less awesome up close,
less imposing than the view
from the top plateau suggests.
On the way back up, echoes
of parrots and lyrebirds ring.
The weather ominous, as feathers
float with the snowfall when birds
lift from the trees and are gone.
vi. Skyways
In the adobe house, fire
warms flesh, while the heart
beats and the small 'i' wonders
'where exactly in this anatomy
do wings fit?' In the cerebellum,
which itself feels nothing,
synapses spark and push
memory's sharp edges
into tissue, of the heart
or the head, with no reply.
It makes no difference, what
the small 'i' decides - just
because they can, birds will
stretch out their wings and fly.