So many things go by unnoticed
like the town you said you were flying to,
and the photographs you sent—
a koala resting warily in the darkened crook
of a low, flesh-colored tree
a velvet kangaroo wilting
behind a tuft of dying grass
that was just too small
to hide her. Her little joey
standing sweetly in the crushing glow
of the yellowing plain
When the island burnt
and the fractured sea of eucalyptus oil gathered inside
countless trunks flamed like twisted candles
I rediscovered these pictures I’d barely seen.
And how dear and otherworldly they were,
gleaming like epitaphs of sculpted marble,
like bottles cast out to sea.
like bright, unfolding bridges
that never find the shore
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Gregory Wolff is an almost-PhD in philosophy turned organic farmer, writer of fiction, poetry and children’s literature, and very proud father of two enchanted and half-wild children.
Photograph by BLMIdaho.
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