Sunday, May 29, 2016

#148 Kevin Brophy 'Luck and caution'

#148 ‘Luck and caution’
We are not fishermen.
We are not even gardeners.
In theory we can be gentle
and philosophical.
We can reduce every task to questions.

We do wear sandals and the earth
stays biblically dusty under its old sun.
We know that under this sun
without food and water
we’d last for three days out here.

We are not fishermen
and no one has called us
to cast our nets at the centre
of a sea at night.

We cannot afford to be kissed
by a mosquito at dusk.
Our lives depend on this.
It is not the mosquito’s fault.

Gates and cockatoos creak,
tree limbs and crows too, they all creak.
Water stews in the sun.
We take testing kits to it before we swim.

We are not fishermen.
We know nothing true about the soul
Not even philosophically speaking.

On burned out ground between dunes
the tussock grass and spinifex is coming back
intense and concentrated as memory.
Small trees stand in poses of agony.

Long dunes glow in the last light so surprisingly
that we have no choice but to feel

what we call our luck to be passing through here.

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