The midnight shift – by Jena Woodhouse
ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY
The midnight shift of summer rain
communicates through fingertips,
a shaman whispering release
to canopies whose countless leaves
lift supplicating, parching lips;
to thirsty blades of guinea grass.
Murmurings erase the griefs and rifts
in lives, in trauma sites, connecting
nerve-branches to synapses,
to memory trees and roots.
Dementia gives way to lullaby,
the heartless learn to cry;
glistening quicksilver pools and loops,
the droplets weave and knit.
The sky, a mushroom dark as plums,
is held aloft by ghostly gums
whose vigil culminates in dawn,
the sun's pearl-blister, muslin-drawn. ▼
Image: Peter Corr - Wikimedia Commons
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