begin with a circle facing a fire auntylit under the blinking pink and kindledawn moon nevertheless still splashingin the breeze rest handfuls of stripletsprigs moiety-up arc an interspeciesintimacy until a dozen landscapes egresswith a eucalyptus lungful and the supernaturalappear commonsense in tempered embersthis is not a mourning poem you seeplaces are totemic uncle dips bottlebrushdew admits life begins with yellowbelly * untroubled chuckle in gesturesthe way the land-owner cites edible plantssurveys the shape the colour of eyesa course of native spices peppers cosmopolitanphenotypes he smokes a pipe with a timberpulse and jokes how he plundered throughDark Emu in a week thanks god for theseasons urging to get on with businesseat biscuits wait for the wind to calmsheepish hawks circle thermal pocketsbirdsong warms the valley lips * didn’t fall from our mother’s clackerwith a pair of clapsticks in our hands auntycalls a tenure of love a labor of warmth for lightfor ceremony for hardening the point spearheadthe facts face the leviathan that chokesthe undergrowth and wraps its brambled bodyaround the roots untouched scales a forsakengallery this toothache country uncle growls yearsof gub-abo leaf litter over his old shouldersletting in a little peace of sky clearingthe air which left untended is prone to ignition * auntie yawns two-stepping with a willywagtaildriptorch in her hand tilts yolk from an egglittle min-min ooze out dance fiddle-footednothing cataclysmic no holocenic genocideno pyretic extinction just a fizz seeds pop ticklelick with a pitch and chimerical taste of speciesin cahoots no war but a wash of living soot nobreakneck rush but simply slips down the slopeflush like a droplet down the wrist a murmurationof carapaces and critters scurrying up trunksa breath before a din no woodwind lakestormno brouhaha only the heartstrings the burningdipthong unbuttoning years of flora and fleshlost on the logophile we walk and talk on a hotbedof rolling bio-semiosis side-by-side a wanderingphantonym in mnemonic attires cool to the touchand calm as wallabies watching in the distance