I. Walk the trail ahead of me into the wild country at the southern end of Namadgi. An unprepossessing trail head — the first sign of beauty is the alpine swamp — but the light of the late mid-winter afternoon is already turning the moments golden. The snow grass lies crushed…

A pigeon bobs between the table legs with a shawl about its neck like oil while dogs gaze with an entirety of purpose, the sharp lines of their bodies — noses, ears — converging on a human, its figure or absence. Looking at the doorway of the cafe where the…

For Evie When you see what I have seen And see it better When you love what I love, and better, Then let my hand slip from yours Do not grasp And let me fall behind you on the strand And pass Let me see one last thing you have not seen or loved You in your flower And I will be well.

For Nat, in his 9th year. Follow Rossi Street to its terminus and you’ll find an unexpected fold in the land. It marks one possible end of the town of Yass. A geological circumstance—a fault—swallows the river and on either side the lolloping hills of the Southern Tablelands become momentarily…

Before the day starts, in the small hours when waking means lying awake, you came to me with a pain in your leg. The pain of growing. Your bones and ligaments, muscles adjusting to each other. A dull aching that never achieves sharpness but whose intensity—lying awake—rises and rises until…

for Nat, turning seven The tacit knowledge of a stride begins in the thigh, the four muscles of the quadriceps gathering, calling to the bend of the knee, tendons tightening, outstretching the calf, the ankle stiffening to encounter the unknown, fine bones of the foot splaying as they receive the…

For Nat, beginning School Ride the wind with me. To ride the wind – in any form – to fly a kite, loft a balloon in the gloaming, hear the snap of a sail, or glide on feckless membranes over a salt white deathful-playful roil – to be grasped by…

The Macquarie University train station took my breath away the first time I slipped below the surface of Herring Road: the long gliding descent into a cavern shaped like a monster’s egg laid in the crust of a world—vanished leaving only its negative space. I was entranced. …

There is a dead rosemary growing out of the Cafe table, dried silvery and leaning. It’s a victim of the vogue for indoor greening. Planted in a corner, where it is too sheltered. Rosemary is a full-sun kind of plant and its paused form is expressive of this love. Her…