by Peter Miles
It was good to lie in the sun discovering
the texture of the wind and its pure pattern
like a blind man in great folds of pure silk;
feeling was good; and it was good to watch
the molten grass and guess the curve
the wind imposed, far clean gums shake
and rock in sudden gusts disordering
the pattern of their nearly imperceptible
high ghosts of colour in the sun’s dilution: emptying
like plastic glassy water from a faucet, shock
of a magpie’s sudden roll and lilt, and pause
of happy wind which once
was human breath and language …. substances
of grass and earth and naked lovely gums
infiltering one’s being, consciousness
of filaments the sense-perception misses save the
wind is murmering in them, and in the sun
they shine, the threads of silver….
this old Australia
in me, this ancient wind-buoyant theme
and music of existence, entity,
will shape the inward soul in quietness
and unpretension of love
as days and years her hands make gracious, lovely as
herself.
Peter Miles (1942)