Lindi-Ann Hewitt-Coleman

i don’t know
who has waited longer
this tree or me
to have this wind trace through fingers
like leaves,
to have our moving shadows
etching paper
as leaf light moves through us.
to be here
synapse to bark skin synapse
touching the leaf crunch
birdsong transience of seasons
and the deep water breath of eternity.

somewhere in the night
my daughters are sleeping.
somewhere in the night
stun grenades fill silence
with sharp shattered shards.
somewhere in the night
gunfire steals breath
meant for dreaming.
somewhere in the night
lives are lost.

somewhere in the night
my daughters are sleeping.
somewhere in the night
we are lost.
somewhere in the night
a line is drawn
in the breathless sand
of the other world.
enough – no more
cry the voices of the voiceless.
no more
echo our grandmothers
and theirs before.
no more whisper the old forests
long fallen to the barren lands.
no more
no more
call the birds from the grey-light edge
of our almost tomorrow.

and we wake to the morning.
and we wake.

the moon was out
new crescent, translucent
as moth wing in the darkening sky.
i wanted to taste it
drink that precarious beauty
full of birds and frogs
and dark hill edges,
but all i could do is stand
a shadow amongst the shadows of trees –
and breathe
until i was the frogsong
and the deep valleyed hills
and the sky full heavy
with stars.

Here and Now

listen to birds
with your eyes closed
smell flowers deeply
touch leaves and bark
and trees
feel soil and sand
and silt between fingers
drink colours with your eyes
love here.

 The Poetry of List-Making

across the water,
across the common
cobweb grey in morning light,
low across empty sunrise benches,
they come.
across the quiet road
to where i have stopped the car
stuck my head out the dawn cold window
to hear their wings passing over,
to feel the murmuring of holy whispers
moving air across my cheek,
to smile at the lightening sky,
to be blessed.

when i met her
iridescence,
saw the flame
of a thousand
lives in her eyes,
waited for her words
that spilled beauty
amongst the stars,
i was overwhelmed.

it took time to understand
that she had no feet
to walk this world,
that her wings
were never broken,
that the sky
always was hers,
as the earth would never be.
that all she could do
was fly.

i left her there
the child
left her with her awkward eyes
and rat tail hair
and lips and tongue
that could only speak snake,
hissy little s’s tripping on words
and worlds that girls
had spoken into being.
i left her there
the girl child
in the swimming river light
because trees were growing breathing
and time was drawing rings.
i visit her there sometimes
the girl child in the water
swim deep amongst the river fish
and slanting shafts of bright.
i am here, she says
in her snaky giggle voice,
we are here, me and you
we are water becoming light.

The Things We Leave Behind

at the top of the hill
it was there
as if the ocean
had climbed the other side
to meet me.
breathing hard
i drank that whispered horizon
with my eyes.
grey smudged amongst
the depths of its blues,
swells tilting into mist,
heart spilling with faraway sounds
of foam crashed shores
and spray breath exhalations
until stiff with cold
and the stillness of standing
i turned back the way i came,
carrying the shifting ocean
in my veins.

i will not turn to salt
looking back to see
if our words
are still carried by this wind,
to see if the walls we built
still stand.
the days are long here,
longer than they were before,
and my eyes dry tear
from always looking forward.

i close them.
can i stop
in this half breath moment
of morning light
that floods and warms me.
if i pause in this breath
does this moment spill
sidewards to forever
until i hold eternity
in stretched lungs
and burst exhale
this beauty
i may have drowned in.