The Creek

A slow effervescence of wind-lifted rain
on knuckle and cheekbone
sweet
occasional prickling
that is met as I walk above the creek, having come down a lane
and out to the back
of the long yards at the edge of town
fragile assault
in the steamy afternoon.

The red earth’s compacted in the high creek bank
baked tight
and a rope swing is looped
below among the slant trees, that rise from there
through the element
of ointment.
These tapering swamp oaks are each drawn overhead
like a splinter that’s festered.
The grass on top of the bank leads back to the plank
palisades
above one of which there perches a folded and dove-breasted
blue smoke
nested in the triple-ply of summer air.

And the green fretwork of a monstera deliciosa plant
against the palings
is Matissean
in this unstylish small town, in the sleeping quarters
of the hinterland –
it seems the one reminder of luxe, calme et volupté
when our inheritance
is an Irish Sunday.

Grey weather between the high-grown, thickly-gathered trees,
the lean
sparse-leaved eucalyptus poles,
parsley-
shelved, but with frail
grey-green leaves, and down the slope the kettle-black
lower boles
among which the water’s glimpsed – the secret creek in khaki that beats
like a vein at the throat
of someone
who’s lying hidden.

Here from an open place I once saw a slick naked black snake
quick
switchback swimming
through all of its two metres
along the creek, encompassing
it in swathes – a wound-up and then let go, fast
mechanical progression
into the dark
entangled mud, the crab
legs akimbo
of the black mangroves at the water’s low margin.

But today there is only the egret’s ancient Egyptian
delicatesse, its foot
professed
in profile on the bevel
of sand-
tipped shore. With its mosquito-fine
placement
I see it again
accomplish
a step, towards the swirl
of rain or of a fish.

The egret is shapely and tapering as an amulet
or a slim gourd
it’s compact
as though smoothed between the hands
the neck
is kinked and finely drawn-out, which becomes a long
length of vine
sharply trimmed-off, and it is seemingly ineffectual,
pensive.
To pick small life is an honourable
scheme, one could imagine
as its claim. It steps out of the stillness and stands
still again
and blue
like backyard smoke,
among the aimless insects of the sunlit rain.