Poem

Maxine Beneba Clarke
September

september germinates,

                                           determined

 

 

                     all sure-quiet-beautiful

and fern and jade unfurl

 

 

in furrows dug with fothergill

                      and hope,

with compost care

 

 

 

september breathes,

                      and seeds new life

 

 

wattle-brilliant

             floss-pink cherry-bloss

blood bottlebrush

buzz-honeybee

 

              and at the sunset

                       spring cicadas

form a deafening sonata

 

                          shedding skin to crisp

 

                     a spring rebirthing

in the warming

                       evening breeze

 

oh, september

       brings remembering

 

 

of fertile earth

                     and worm

 

          of chrysalis,

as swooping magpies

                       proud their nests

and cockatoos

squawk fidgeting

                                for fruit

 

 

here blooms september,

 

                                             southern-spring,

 

the ghost of all this earth,

and what we’ve lost

and all we are

 

and all we stand

                            to lose

Maxine Beneba Clarke is the author of The Hate Race and Foreign Soil. She is a winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry.

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