gravel

gravel
sydney, june 2000

where things rested, they now fall.
wisps of cloud wash out like
the coming of final secrets
against the lighter cloud above.
rain from the sky of cloud
wakes on the evening
you know an inkling
______in its cold
through the leaves
wonder if you can stay
_______the dark.
rain like a vision of
_______gentleness lost
against things.
you stand in against
_______the trunk of
a tree whose branches
weigh like sleep
in dreams of stone
touch a falling
in the air,
colour gone now from
your mask, stiff paper
given in to skin,
the poise of a lover
gone from your stillness
darkening.
leaves of the plane tree
closing, a shallowing rush
over their remnant summers,
how things fall
letting others go in
the flight.
nothing to hold to
except this light
spread like gravel
slipping
i want to fold in
among those i’ve left
become as them aloft
stained with autumn
weathering the going
under a wind sprung
rain combing a
voice together

i wait on
into this
low evening

further to
the stem.

Click on the link above to hear a reading of the poem. The accompanying music is from ‘Nuit Exotiques for Violin and Piano’ (1924) by Ernest Bloch, and interpreted here by musicians Mischa Lefkowitz, violin, & Brent McMunn, piano.