I pick up a rock on the lakeshore,
a riverstone the glacier left,
now cleft perfectly down the middle,
a notch at one end.
This is how one feels,
half a self,
bereft.
We are here, perhaps, to look for the rest of who we are,
and that could be anything—
a lake, a range, a woman,
a pink robin,…

I—Too much summer too close to home

Warm days in mid September.
Each year summer comes early
and each year we forget and
say what happened to the spring?
as though we ever had spring
on the sandstone coast of this
dry-eyed island, inching its
way north to the equator.

And then whatever we’re call-
ing the season goes and…

I—Theory
I have a general theory: keep going.
I have a rider: watch for transitions.
And another: beware false summits.

II—Practice
Prepare for the walk
by taking the walk.
Go a little faster than you should
and a little slower than you’d like.
Notice the pink mountain berry
brilliant as a hooker’s lipstick,
the pink robin on the…

Casting

Walking the other sunny afternoon
along the Frankland Sands
I heard a fish jump in shallows.
The sound drew me, and then it drew the fish,
small and sleek and insouciant, translucent as the water,
which was so shallow and so tannin-clear
I could make out easing along the lakebed beneath
the shadow of the fish.
That, I thought,
…

Down on Clarence Street
the day is trying to re-
member how to rain.

Up here in the room
I’m trying to remember
how to teach. Grammar

Is what we both want,
a little fluency. The
way things went. Before.

—Sydney, 12 May 2006