MARK MILLER
- Shoalhaven River, First
Light
- 1
- Impatient for the sun’s blade
- to pare mist from the water
- I glance sidewards,
- two king parrots spurt past
- red and squeaking
- and delirious with rain.
-
- 2
- I slip down out of
- the shin-high grasses
- to where dark water
- languidly slaps
- the fishbone sand.
- Among the reeds
- minnows lip rings on water,
- they shatter into bright embers
- as the day bursts alive
- with wood ducks rising,
- their necks and wings
- incandescent with fire
- racing across the river’s skin.
3
On the ridge
I pass from stone to stone,
tapping and splitting, looking for
fossils,
bits of crustacean,
bone shards, a pine needle,
a trapped seed.
I bypass crystallised stones,
my eyes seek out others instead:
look, how in this light,
the hair-fine lines
embedded here in a russet vein
resemble a leaf’s filigree
or a fingerprint in sand.
I move on, curious, alone,
hear water relentlessly
churning the banks below me,
whirling mixed pebbles and shells,
erasing history
from the river’s floor.
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