Walking a Forest Trail One Summer Afternoon - by Judith Beveridge
ISLAND | ISSUE 160Shadows spill towards the creek; rotting leaves smell of peat
and leached tannins. In the trees magpies chortle,
then lightly run a line of choriambs across their vocal chords,
preparations choristers might make, bubbling up sounds
before an evening of carolling. Cockatoos add their up-talk
and vocal fry. Further into the scrub a brush turkey
back-kicks leaves onto a mound, then scrapes some away
as if aiming for the steamy ambience of a Turkish bathhouse.
A honeyeater spells its weight around a banksia, swiftly
applying its tongue to the flowers as though it were a tiny
makeup brush. Sugar ants touch feelers, twerking their
abdomens to a beat of bounce music heard only through this
coded exchange. Now the wind gets up—Sibelius, Sibelius
it seems to say, then Sisyphus, Sisyphus as it pushes
into the reaches of the blue gums—you’d swear that rushing
was a waterfall’s—a white gown cutting loose from a high
hook—corolla whorls, bouquets of splash, drops falling down
the gauzy erasure of a rock face. Near the creek so many
mosquitoes—black stitches pulled from wounds; their
whine like little, sticky violins; and among the reeds,
an egret, cool, a statue in a classical pose, and you stop
grateful for the way it settles you, the way it makes you
feel both tranquil and exalted before the mosquitoes
perforate your attention again, or a kookaburra with its cackle,
or bell miners’ soft clanging like a distant sailboat’s rigging.
Now the heat has uploaded the cicada’s grotesque decibels
and you watch the sky for an update on the approaching
storm, thunder circulating like a major news feed. You long
for the sound of the creek again, for its small, silver trickle
over the pebbles, but you’ve reached the road, the heavy bass
of traffic combative as a boom box. Later, you’ll try to set
something down: preserve a scene or two, though every moment
streamed with change. Perhaps the egret will be an image
that holds, or the creek, or the fret of mosquitoes around
your head. Perhaps you’ll let the day have its simple dissolution
like the storm that has turned down its volume and disappeared. ▼
This poem appeared in Island 160 in 2020. Order a print issue here.
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