Poems (Forrest)/The creek in the scrub
THE CREEK IN THE SCRUB
At the edge of the sea the song I seekIs the husky voice of a little creek.In the heart of a tangled way it hides,With a thread of honey amid its tides.To the tumbled browns of its shadowed bed,Like golden hairs on a pillow spread,Comes a trickling light that a way will burnThrough the lace-fringed leaf of the shielding fern;Where the touch of fancy in memory gropesIs a slim liana, swaying ropes,All ribboned green where it clasps the tree,And the whip-bird lashes the mystery.The cat-bird echoes an elfin jestWhere blown leaves eddy to earth's cool breast,To blaze the quartz-white figs betweenIn lacquer red and enamel green.
Pan pipes unseen as the songsters comeTo feast in the shade of the flooded gum,Where a darting wing and a beak can findBrown chestnuts glossy in tawny rind.While chattering finches and magpies sleekHave swelled the chant of the little creek.
Oh, I know what the moon is on the seaAnd the brilliant stars in their witchery! I know, when the sun is westering,How a bright sail slants like a swooping wing;I know how the shore grows fuchsia-paleWhen sunset beats with his blood-red flailThe billowing gold from the fields of blueTo lead the gleaners of twilight through;And I know that the noon has clasped the bayWith an opal chain on a silver spray.I see at morn how the samphire straysTill a streak of jade through the turquoise plays,How the dawn strings pearls for the breast of night,And the south wind laces the waves with white.
But I also know that my heart must seekA spice-sweet scrub and a bouldered creek,Where a tree-fern leans like a link acrossThe orange fungi, the emerald moss.