river red gum bend
Sorrowful river red gums, their boughs stooping deep, staying their upper limbs against the winds. Only now do I wish to tread a path beneath. To feel them crowd me in and wrap my heartbeat in the gentle underside of their leaves. Those same leaves that brushed the burning cheeks of the child who climbed high to sulk in her eucalypt tomb. What yearning do I carry that dares outstrip that child and her eternity? It sends me gathering blindly on foot. Always the impassive critic of what I manage to clutch and hold. And, absent knowing its intentions for me, I have learned to worry only for my knees. Bending them will suffice it seems. So I tell the leaves in lengthy soliloquies.