I read you, tree-mother,
through a careful eye,
bark-stripped and burning in your own slow time,
defying the searching category of my description.
You were already old when the poem found you,
already holding the sky in your hands
with a promise you never made to me.
What the dust knows,
what the trunk knows,
what the roots drink
are not my metaphors.
They are the first language of Country
spoken in peel and scar and reaching,
and I am caused to listen,
silent at your feet,
broken open.

 

26/2/2026