Australia Centurion

 

Heidelberg light, hard edged;

not sharp-cutting wire

knifed thru fractured mica.

as old canvas turns

 

gold to sepia, brown to aged

ebony, in descending years

gone back, down, away,

 

to where we survive

 

and lie cocooned – like pupae

of paper wasps

in interstices of time, locked

in desiccated people-nests.

 

alive and dying,

with heartbeats of twenty,

and buzzing heads

- barely breathing,

 

like hibernating Huntsmen

in dry-grounds of Roberts' bushgrave

or Streeton's unfocussed eye,

we lie in wells of irresolution,

 

resenting the shards of light, scattered,

broken on a suit of skin

which darkness cannot cleanse

nor day lay bare.

 

Chris Hubbard

Cockermouth, Cumbria

2017