Train Journey

Glassed with cold sleep and dazzled by the moon, out of the confused hammering dark of the train I looked and saw under the moon's cold sheet your delicate dry breasts, country that built my heart; and the small trees on their uncoloured slope like poetry moved, articulate and sharp and purposeful under the great dry flight of air, under the crosswise currents of wind and star. Clench down your strength, box-tree and ironbark. Break with your violent root the virgin rock. Draw from the flying dark its breath of dew till the unliving come to life in you. Be over the blind rock a skin of sense, under the barren height a slender dance... I woke and saw the dark small trees that burn suddenly into flowers more lovely that the white moon.