Coiled, sprung and greased he waits. All cracked water-melon smile wavering towards the short soft rays of dawn. The year’s passing, pokered straight by heat held days and fading vision. Am I the determined settler, carver of great tracts of land? Or merely consumed by naivety? Tar coated railings quiver beneath indecisiveness or is it infatuation? Sixty years and still the obsession. A choice not undone by generational scribes, ledgers bound with surly conviction. Six feet up he stalks the dry tangle of sleeping creeks, hedge-rowed within listless walls of lignum. The misty congregation of out-stretched hands, a light unlit by drowsy days of heating sun, then the dawning of a new unknown horizon. He smiles then, soft and knowing.

Taken from: DIVERTISSEMENTS LOVE • WAR • SOCIETY Selected Poems By Nicole Alexander 2008 The Poet’s Network