Freedom found in falls from such great heights...

Water

Water in braids and tumbles, shells of spray,
heaves of clear glass and solemn geeneyes pools,
eel-tails and quick-meanders, goes its way
fretting this savaged basalt with its tools.

Where from the hot rick-edge I drop my hands
and see their bones spread out like tugging weed,
each finger double-winged with ampersands
that stand above the current's talking speed.

Such sentences, such cadences of speech
the tongjing water stutters in its race
as may have set us talking each to each
before our language found its proper pace;

since we are chanelled by its running stream.
A skin of water glitters on your eye,
and 'round your skull a halo of faint steam
breathes up to join the spindrift in the sky

Judith Wright

Mapleton Falls, Mapleton Falls National Park, Blackall Ranges, Queensland, Australia