by LYNDAL TURNER
The weathered wooden bridge feels sunken,
but it’s a trick of slowly rotting leaves, whose carcasses
still linger from the fall, sponging up the drops
whose descent has not already been suspended
by the canopy of ancient gums.
The baby burbles against my chest, delivers
a soft kick to my side flank.
The signpost says Giant’s Circuit, 180 –
I shift a fern. 1800m, and the Mill is on the way.
This way, I call. Small feet thunder on by me.
Soon the ground rises, the earth rises
to meet my efforts, and the air inserts with pointed ends
into my lungs, for after one labour are the other
many labours. This air clarifies
the cost of rise and distance, clears
the thoughttrack of thickets and underbrush.
I concentrate on breathing,
on the soft crown nestled under my chin, the others
already too far, a blur in the silken drizzle of green,
this picture book of hidden miracles.
Another sign, Trevorrow’s Mill.
Cooooeeee? At first, only the lumberjacks answer
with a clank of metal on timber, the rushing
water, leaves turning over and back again, then
Coooee e e repeating on the hills,
and the howls of a minor skirmish.
We meet again at the Standing Giant,
who is nobly benign at the interruption to 300 years
of perfect solitude. As if he knows
that this too will pass soon enough.