The afternoon released     last class     freed
from the sentence of a sentence     to dawdle out
along a shingle verge     the heady scent
of gum trees in the gully     changing pace
as magpies swoop down from their watchtower

to outrun time and enter space
– the unsupervised, unscripted primer –
dry grasses   a dust-caked hum
the riddle of the creek-bed     dragonflies and reeds
a wilding apple sharp upon my tongue.

Before home     and the night descending
to rhyme my way across a wheat field    floating
on the plains’ big sky     inland gulls like envoys
their telegraphic cries that said not far to go . . .
not far to go became a day     a moment

in a single hour    words woke upon the page
sense with sense converged    shapes
became a sound I made    to suffer
the illumination    gain set on the scales
with loss    the world forever after in translation.