it’s not safe to drink water from the sky anymore,
and the soil is laminated in plastic.
even still, the egrets have returned to Cooks River
and across the Tasman the Waitangi has human rights
the plagues won’t stop because the tundra is melting,
because the not-us creatures are homeless and searching.
even still, the winter wattle is in bloom, and all along the estuaries, yellow scrub grins.
and we are a treadmill species moving not moving
even still you see lorikeets glide across campus, nesting in the cabbage tree palms
and when they ask you where do you see yourself in five years ten years
how far on the treadmill would you like to have run, there is the only the treadmill
‘even still,’ you say, ‘I will step into the empty space beside the machine
where do I see myself?
Beside a reborn river,
playing Celtic reels
and speaking soft sounds
on sacred
ground.’
Word upon Word 