Notes About The Poem
Written 24th July, 2026 for Tie Dye in July Poetry Contest sponsored by Anthony Bianco
Fire in Winter
July.
cold tightening
around fabric.
cotton clenched,
twisted like creekwater
seized by frost.
white cloth waits
for its undoing.
dye seeps
slowly—
like mist on the ranges,
like breath
through the fold.
indigo first,
deep as a billabong shadow.
then iron-rust,
red ochre,
the colour of dust
after the heat.
then wattle-yellow,
sudden sun
in the gathered valleys.
each knot holds a silence.
each seam marks a boundary.
colour works through it.
outside,
paddocks are stiff in the morning.
frost sketches brittle lines
across fencewire and spider web.
inside,
the cloth will not hold still.
it runs.
it fractures.
it remembers heat.
hands stain
like earth after rain,
like bark at dusk,
like something living
pressed briefly
into human shape.
unwind—
and the fabric is no longer fabric,
but aftermath:
rings like seasons misread,
threads like thaw beginning,
a map of stain and release,
winter stored in cloth.
July loosens.
not the land—
not yet—
but here,
in this small storm
of colour,
winter breaks
into circles of fire.
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