Morning walk during the pandemic

Meg Mooney

Copper sunrise caterpillar range
                                       white carpet dried grass

the fuzz blur of lockdown 
                                       lifts                            

                                        and on that far ridge 
I haven’t climbed for so long

fat, fluffy spikes of ptilotus
                                        are little clouds 

of pale mushroom grey
                                        among orange boulders             

and rusty pink kangaroo grass 
                                        with origami seedheads

somehow this little rock garden
                                        on a shrubby unvisited hill  

a refuge for roos
                                        holds the angst 

of this strange time
                                        and softens it

so I walk back across the plain
                                       quickly and lightly
   
 holding a bunch of woolly ptilotus
                                         and cinnamon-coloured grass

Meg Mooney has lived in central Australia for 34 years. She has had three poetry collections published: Being Martha’s Friend (Ginninderra Press, 2015), The Gap (Picaro Press, 2010) and For the dry country: writing and drawings from the Centre with artist Sally Mumford (Ptilotus Press 2005). Meg is currently working on a memoir.