After Field Lines - Cameron Robbins’ exhibition at MONA 2016.
Loops of light dance
from rock to rock, magnetic lines
traced from the smell of stone.
Does the earth push up against
the weight bearing down on it?
Einstein’s gravity equals acceleration.
What am I?
I remember
leaping from boulder to boulder
a charge travelling through my bare feet
as they kissed the dolerite.
Any notion of being still
rotates into the future
at 1241 kilometres per hour *
beyond day and night.
Some cultures know rock as family.
Science says the past is out there
in its own space-time
sending us light.
I am nothing
if not grounded in stone.
* the speed of the earth’s rotation at latitude 42 degrees
Anne Collins’ books are The Language of Water, Seasoned with Honey - a four-poet anthology; and The Season of Chance, all published by Walleah Press. My Friends This Landscape, (Ginninderra Press) is a collection of prose and poetry. Her other work is published in literary journals, newspapers and anthologies.