Country garden
mosquitos skate over decay
translucent greens
marble murky concrete surfaces
end papering the end
betraying stagnant mud
amid strangulated exotic shrubs
squatting, spindly,
beneath ancient sentinels
(River Red Gums:
remnant vegetation
of historical significance)
moss slippery timber bridges
connect trompe l'oeil ponds
where stewing puddles
accept stiff brown fern fronds
forming Fibonacci patterns
of perfected putrefaction
unequal to the sum of past actions
Mapping beneath
Black opal hearts, glinting open facetted,
to the broad sweep of a southern sky.
Distant and mysterious, the secret side of the moon,
a hidden face scarred and cratered.
A constellation scattered wide across an undulating veil:
meaning in its light and shadow.
Gold threads sewn into night’s velvet blanket,
thrown haphazardly over the open plain.
Shining satellite images reveal what we don’t see:
the underground, lines of communities,
filaments intertwined, subterranean routes
out of view of unheeding travellers.
Only now we perceive
wombats burrowing beneath.
To understand this underworld
we pull similes from the sky
like oranges from high branches,
satiating gaps in understanding.
As above: so below. In darkness, light.
We open windows to witness life anew.
Falling upon what we already know,
we need what we see interpreted.
Rebecca Dempsey’s work has been featured or is forthcoming in Elsewhere Journal, Ligeia, and Miniskirt Magazine. Rebecca lives in Melbourne, Australia, and can be found online at https://writingbec.com/