All night on the tin roof rain dinted dreams,
rattled late morning intermittently.
Joy informed council 'bout the ford
beyond our door, bark-blocked drain maybe.
Anyway, spraying that puddle, we drove,
through no other flood, inland of Yarram,
up to Tarra Bulga National Park, snaking
'long the narrow road
(but two cars passing
all the tight-winding miles)
crossing
recrossing the Tarra, bordered with montbricia,
river chucking boulder-chins, chuckling viscous,
until we hit the old forest:
tree-ferns,
white wattle, dwarfed by blackwood, mountain ash
towering, crowding canopy, crown over
the distant light.
Heaved ourselves out to see
Tarra Falls under the drizzle, white tumult
deeping the silhouette wonder of upreaching giants
pedestalled on sheer rock, swooning at the blended
aromas of eucalypt and wattle blossom, resinous,
honeyed medication.
Oh, but the toddle to
the suspension bridge, immersed in the ferny trail -
and then to shake it like Shrek: 'Do this, do you mean?'
Imagine rotten planks spinning into ferny gorge.
Ha!
'That'll do, now.'
Returning
roads steaming evaporate as sun peeked, and
clear of the forest,
hill-fields cupped and chasmed
Lulus of views,
over vast Gippsland plain
to watercolor blues of far mountain range.
