klara[dot]nz

2025-04-15

Maybe I was lost,

As a small child in those hills,

When the days slipped by without me.

I spent years on my narrative,

Trying to find the writing,

To draw it out like the night draws dew,

An ichor; something I need.

I return often - to that tin roof

I wondered under when I was 10 -

Under the stars, looking up from the blood \

Rocks spilled.

I return often to those summers.

Wet in the sheets, freezing cold, a frost in December.

The gorse grows thicker. Longer since the horses roamed,

And yet more a garden was tended.

Longer since before.

In the hills they ran a bulldozer; maps confirm.

Carefully, those tracks can be found;

The hills keep each score longer than the Barnetts remember.

Still, I am there.

I remember, now, a jar of charcoal I made.

Nobody knew, thought to ask.

Even the jar was lost by most standards.

It'll be sitting, right there, under that tree.

Dropped from five feet up, too clumsy to bother carrying -

Charcoal in my hand enough for now.

I am there, too. In those branches and watching the bay.

Awash with the view from far above.

I never wrote then.

The lid rusted through, perhaps.

Waiting for a younger me

To reach down deep and draw.