An Island in the memory of the Inland Sea

Charles Sturt the Explorer at a Native Grave


Here, in larger renunciation
on my sublime quest
a rite of spiritual passage for
the inland sea,

I find a mound of earth,
a lived lifeprint
creation’s surface swept by
a touching hand

with bare scrub branches
framed by
the old limbs of scraggy trees
which divide

fleshed out trunks from thinnings
that lean
above the mirage circle
of griefs,

- Indigenous form -
enclosed in
landed skies, veiled as sea
in the play

of a heavenly body cast
as this island,
by a sign of forking spears,
in a shadow

on the well-rounded
tumulus
depicting light’s absence
in presence

I, the stark, weathered expeditioner
take a bow
that is shaped to prior respect
for a purer exploration.

2002 © Wayne David Knoll