His list is long— as he pauses on life
and Mount Wellington's shadows shift.
Those stealing life's song out of young shoots
breathe the longest
while his beloved dies young.

Scars bleed droplets, not gushing
like Cataract Gorge
when scratched, or touched afresh;
not given space—
how he was stung is remembered.

He tries to be the sunrise
over Bruny Island,
but redback spiders imbibe shadows
lying dormant
assessing risk, ready to strike.

Wounds murmur in the Tamar River
objecting, having heard it all,
wearing down joy's clouded lightness.
Rasping scrubwrens warn
while falsity sharpens its spike.

Flattery's forked tongue is honeyed
as leatherwood, but synthetic—
He resists its bait, casting it past the Derwent;
his skin crawling at false charm.
He retains his grounded sense of self.

Time doesn't wipe it all clean to heal—
it calcifies into chilled stone
like Cradle Mountain's fissured misted face
with sticks of pine trees burnt
while eucalypt gums regenerate, partially blind.

His garden grows wild now
through rambling cracks
as grasses from a cemetery head-piece
sport defiant blooms
of an unaccepted genus.

Memory is a compass
pointing due north
past Port Arthur's harried walls
and Antarctic gales
as tales of unfinished lives see, and wait—