To lie among flames, to come through fire
in the shape of a star – (o hope) –
feathery. To push pink past char, woolly
across heath and open forest, clumping
to blush, jump bruised blue eucalypt
-hazed mountains lying grazed – (o hope) –
To be given a man’s name – forsythii – not to be
named, to be nameless, to know
what it is to be spoken over, spoken
of, pressed. To open underground – (o hope) –
To come back – hailed by lyre, by whip – from
catastrophe – after the flicked
cigarette, flash of hand and stripe of dry
lightning. To follow the drowning – (o hope) –
carrying colour like a blanket. To labour in fire
‘furnished with rays’ – actinotus – homeless. To go
across razed borders under a burgeoning
enemy’s thunder, after everything
To offer an artillery of fluffy seeds to breeze, open
velvety bracts high above cousins coasting
silver. To hold dew-nectar morning bright, to soothe
the wounded. To be wounded, to lie under disaster
– (o hope) – To make something anyway. To turn
from your moribund cradle into roseate light, into air –
– (o hope) –
Herbarium specimen images were provided by The National Herbarium of New South Wales.