Older

Older

Trees older than streams they grow in, leaves sunstruck

The day we walk up Sheoak River, butterflies orange older

Than the tracks they caper over. Stones older than firs

Came here somehow a seedcone on a ship older waves

Bow sprayed cabin boomed. Sticks older than snakes

Up in the cool, we find waterfalls older cliffs expose

Gape into space, froth older than blood around pools,

Storm blown eucalypts older than leaf-turn cocoons

Summer schools the quickest way. Skinks slim, older

Than a word for them, fishbone fern older than bramble

Blackberries. Boulders headhigh older than glass, canvas,

Toppled into stepping stones blooms of volcanic grey, older

Than the windstreaming trees, older than anthills and their

Perfect warm moment, older than tourists in suncream.

Philip Harvey