WALKING 1

Triangular Walk: Lerderderg River, Farmland, Avenue of Honour

1. The young tall trees and mature bushes 
     sway and brush against one another
     fling like flames to the wind's bellows.
    
     Even the newly-planted, steadied 
     by plastic sheaths and stakes
     twist and shake, apparently delighted
     
     at being whisked about so briskly
     by a foreign power, faceless, fun-loving.


2.  While I plod
     equal to air's push
     determined to complete
     one thousand steps.


3.  Leafless, the memorial elms
     stand stiffly to attention, rigid
     in ridged bark armour, faithful
     to their reason for being.
    
     Only at their flimsier edges
     does the wind call forth
     signs of life: slight shivers.


4. Blue wrens.
    A roaming dog.
    Red crates.
    Pickers in fluoro.
    A pair of magpies.
    Bright parrots.

    One thousand
    six hundred
    and thirty-eight
    steps.