Conversation With the Park Shaman

A woodhacker rattles like wolf-jaws, A dog's appetite has just died There's blood in those graphite-green curtains Duck Islanders howl of a homicide. There's a murder of crows in The Three Trees, Where the Sky's Ties are tethered away The water's been kissed for the first time And the sun's lips have no more to say. But the Stormwood has hissed back to sleeping Gunpowder Grove murmurs, 'match' The Twig-Ink is scrawling black symbols Like Maggie Pie scratched on our latch. Grandad William keeled like a lever, Dug his heels sprung the Wheels in Giant's Back And the Red Cave began to make music And the timber talked in Tumble-Down Shack. It means that the summer is humming Its footpeople wait on my hands The Silkwitch is building a ladder Rippling gold rungs through the grass. When the light's right, like now, you can climb it Through Horruary's cheek to the sun Til the Fat-Ranch and chewing of winter Are just gold stuff below In the land of the How Far We've Come.