Swainsona formosa
There, above the gibbers and crusty
earth, the rise of red on a wash
of green—red flags, red keels, the dark
lustrous boss in between, ready for birds,
ready to seed for the long odds of summer;
florid David among the arid Goliath.
I’ll grow you here, in the newly parched,
seed you in a bed of dry bark and creek
sand. To course rampant down my brick
walls, to carry the cool stars of a desert
night, the light swamping a red-ochre range,
and the optimism you ride, on a whiff of rain.