coming from a place that's out of the way
that's a long way away
coming from a place that’s out of the way, that’s a long way away, I sit on the sun bleached brown bench, three slats missing, the side of the green lit hill, just high enough for toes to not quite to reach, for legs to swing, to feel like sitting on a throne, watching this jigsaw piece, this estuary, this pooling point, this pacific ocean puddle, ears catching the shining cuckoo in dense, shadowed leaves call one times, two times, three, long descending notes, then hush, palm sized fantails darting, snatching white moths with powdered wings, steadied by the pale, ghost gum trunk of the enormous, solitary tree, coming from a place that’s out of the way, that’s a long way away, the tide at midpoint, coming, going, it’s hard to tell, spoonbills, silent, heads moving like metronomes, left, right, left, right, tracing the tidelines, the flying fish of silver who shoot like scattered light for brief seconds, over here, oh wait, over there, my hand, obedient to instinct, reaches, swats a fly that’s landed on my cheek, coming from a place that’s out of the way, that’s a long way away, where the air smells of green, and salty, and sweet, and here now a blue heron lifts, the sky, it kneels to catch her, wings wandering over water to meet feathered landings just upstream, distant horses on the hill move slowly in soft clumps, coming from a place that’s out of the way, that’s a long way away, for a day, a weekend, a season, for four thousand weeks.
A prose poem to your place! You are an incredibly great writer. Thank you for reporting from your perch, my sweet friend, and thanks for watching out for the spoonbills. Getting a postcard from you is always a lovely thing.
This is so beautiful.