Upland Dusk

UPLAND DUSK

Pre-dusk deepens into the frost-dark
Gum trees die-back into silhouettes
With leaf-bunches, hanging black.

Mist smears of the stilled dam
Trickles from the fag-end, curls over
The embankment and sinks downstream.

The day-spent bush gives birth a kangaroo
Hopping down a clearing of fog-grass, its tail-arc
Waves across a grassy sea in a leaping rhythm.

Horizons up light - coloured galah - pink and grey

Silhouettes rub out upward and wash into dim
Outlines thicken, colours die, and shapes meld.

Only the throb-engine creek of frogs is alive.
Didgeridoo-croaks call up the time of bats,
and mammal-butterfiles play
shadow puppets on the sky.

The zenith tube which filled with light is earthing down
Fluttering grims touch down with stiffling kisses
And ancient mopokes two-tone of the dim.

Only Venus is the dusk-sun, a cold crystal grail
In the drink, and the crescent moon
launches its smile boat,
as if taking bearings
for the dreamtime.


1989 © Wayne David Knoll
Doctors Creek, Trentham, Victoria



The view from the verandah also became the view from inside the shadows. Facts went down with the sun, as if the sun-god was too small. The moonis only lit with Other light, and the grails of inspiration will beckon men to dream rather than to be real. Bit the light still beckons me to be charmed by an utterlast dream... a promise... that there will come a day.