on Dja Dja Wurrung Country
at Melville Caves, colonially named after Captain Melville,
a bushranger who hid out there

 

Enduring discipline of air

in leaf and shimmer attends

this granite estate

 

of concealment. Its consoling

vistas swing there to

here. Things stir. They

 

shift as if grace speaks

where a great hawk rides

this (in)explicable world of gas

 

this answering science of breath.

Do you say hallowed

mystery or sleuth

 

say there to here say gust to

gale that steps runs through

animates limbs. This stone’s idiom

 

of respect is older

than your guess

as sun plays

 

across leaves’ lances

like the spill of a sore

toward its mend.

Anne Elvey

 

Anne Elvey’s most recent book of poetry is White on White (Cordite Books 2018). She is editor of a hope for whole: poets speak up to Adani (Rosslyn Avenue Productions 2018), and managing editor of Plumwood Mountain: An Australian Journal of Ecopoetry and Ecopoetics. Anne lives on Boonwurrung Country in Seaford, VIC, and holds honorary appointments at Monash University and University of Divinity.

© 2019