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Sometimes
by styx via sal Sunday, May 11 2014, 12:03pm
international / poetry / post

some times i hold
my hand to my face
to re-assure myself
i exist --
the rolling swell
of creation
is all-absorbing

to be distinct
or not to be distinct,
is not so much the question
but an oscillation,
not so much a choice
but an option

floundering is characteristic
of human existence,
isn’t it?

sometimes i force myself
to write desert poetry,
the bush is overpopulated
with bush poets

urban poets are plentiful
but desert poets uncommon
as few venture into
the heartland

i have become proficient
i am now second to none
at encoding the searing
stillness of the heart,
the whispers of tufts
in the sand
spinifex filtering the wind,
rocky outcrops
delineating my mind
against the sky

i wonder at times
why desert poets
are rare in Oz
the nation is
almost entirely desert
yet poets huddle at
the urban fringe
and write about each other
as though
the red expanse did
not exist or is foreign

urban poets prefer to write
about each other
perhaps re-assuring
themselves
they exist

but the desert brims
with life
the archaic rocks
offer stability,
permanence

so it is that i write
in the sand
and whisper
the secret language
that is only spoken
by ghosts
and desert poets
of the past

http://ozpoetry.hopto.org/poetry/poem-510.html