o you not sense my admiration

when I purpose my walk to go by

your address? Could I decribe these

colours you deploy, had I the skill?

They are water in bleached wood

streaked bare with green that pinks,

a faint blue fragile as egg’s shell,

grey that goldens this scratch of

bark, held to fall but lifting

into dusk when sun picks out

each detail of your leaf & bough

in rose gold blush. On the best

days, rain turns your trunk to

mauve and lemon lineages of style.

Your slenderness aims upward

to spread of limbs. You outreach

the house. Canopy’s open lace

of lance and arm accords itself

to your hidden roots. They search

out water, keep conversation in soil

with fungi and mites. You make light

shimmer with self. Painterly, your

bole shifts according to weather

in hues that shine and slow my pulse

while joy quickens towards you.

Beyond allegory for any other

lover, you are your most becoming.

Anne Elvey is a poet and researcher living on Bunurong Country in a bayside suburb of Naarm/Melbourne. Her latest poetry collection is Leaf (Liquid Amber Press, 2022).

Email: anne.elvey@monash.edu

https://sunglintdrift.com