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A good innings, they will say when I die.
She can’t complain, a blessed release really.
On such platitudes I spit.
I am not replete, not gorged
like a fat frog indifferent to cavorting flies.
I can never have enough.
Earth is stuffed with wonder.
Once blinkered and profligate,
I recall nights oblivious to stars –
days and nights squandered
in agitation, rummaging past flotsam
festooning future fantasy.
Swallow, how your flight sings
Child, your smile steeps my heart in honey
Lover, you redeem my living.
Flowers, so fleet.
I call up my wizened, walnut heart
to burn hot and red
to embrace all rocks and knolls
and ragged mountains
all water in sheet and flight
all that springs green and juicy, all that creep, crawl
dance, fly, roar, snuffle, snort –
sing like the spheres
all that waters the soil with blood and tears.
No, I have not done with you earth
I need wade and roll in the grass, pluck, chew
and chew again till green juice
channels my creviced chin.
Oh, to slough off scales and see
I want the sun to fire my eyes
a galah dawn to flush my soul
and a tree, branched for climbing
I want to be growing – me.
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© Rose Allan, First prize, Maleny Folk Festival Award, 1992
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