It’s alright when the world’s sleeping.
Stars sit in the yew tree.
The moon is anyone’s heritage.
The cane-toad turns into an oracle.
The night-bat forgets she’s shy.
The cricket sings with renewed strength.
I plant phlox and azalea in my midnight
Garden patch – and make
Plans for a changed tomorrow
When this mother-land of ours will again
Clothe herself in the language
Of petal and leaf – and the mild
Aroma of musk and all things pleasing.
In the hours being struck
By dawn’s grey fingers, I take
One solitary olive branch and offer
Up my reckoning
To the invisible bearer of us all:
Let there be more elemental magic
As the axis bends.
Let there always be
Fine imagery... and a pattern
To record it.
©Stefanie Bennett
(2 hostages and the gunman have been shot
dead – and 4 injured. The gunman was a
self-styled Iranian Cleric.
‘Martin Place Siege, Sydney Australia’
Stefanie Bennett has published eighteen books of poetry. Of mixed ancestry [Irish/
Italian/Paugussett-Shawnee] she was born in Queensland, Australia in 1945.
