E come l’aere, quand’è ben piorno,
per l’altrui raggio che ’n sé si reflette,
di diversi color diventa addorno
—Canto 25, lines 91–93
The gradient so steep, slippery slope
a spectral comeuppance and comedown,
to see both ends clearly at once, like an embrace
a bunching together: ending in flowering
wattle: yellow bled into the bandwidth,
lustrous pollen strewn through violet
redemptive, lacking any supernumerary
and bowed solid to flooded gum sombre
with its touch of rain, damping down greenery
of parabola: the sun on the horizon,
just before sinking out of the refractory:
remnants of York gum bursting in veto:
settlers, ‘late comers’, those before and before
and underwriting media myths of lift and sink,
their covenants so radiant so blinding
just before darkness falls and a bill edges
its way through parliament to catch back
what’s been semi-given back, sciences of error
new truth straining for rights from conception
to burial, rainbow taking us all in: short, sharp
emotional quagmire.