FIVE LONGWOOD POEMS, on my first summer at East Longwood near Euroa

1980                                               

The rocks, millennial, are there,

touched by every force and weathered,

bearing the touch of every season,

real, eternal.

Oh, to be rock!

1980                                               

The vortex turns and turns

in geometric increase.

Spinning upon itself and extending through reality,

concentrating into a singly column,

so intense and fine,

it explodes into a new dimension.

1980                                               

These trees, this gravel and rock,

this nature so broad, so beautiful,

this warm wind from the south, humid and blowing strongly,

• all is mine.

It is my domain

in which I walk.

It is me, my other body, my clothing.

It burns me, this sun

and this wind caresses me.

It burns my body and I bear its tattoo.

It forms me;

I have become incarnate in it;

now it is me and I am it.

1980                                               

The heat of summer

the large dry rocks and granite soil:

– here I will find truth,

the blinding truth that is my light.

1980                                                

Stripped of all things yet robed with all!

The scalpel honed, refined,

of purest metal, the quintessence of technology,

is held so delicately, so adroitly.

It cuts away all that is unnecessary,

pares away, leaving pure flesh