The Iron Tree

THE IRON TREE


As if its total absence
made the lost garden
more precious

As if the dearth of trees
caused human need for such
fixed corners to vision,

such leafed edges of place,
such vertical reference points,
to make seeing safe.

A man with clever hands
and a sculptural bent of mind
welded iron into a tree

A metal tree,
a Coober Pedy Iron Tree
with iron tree branches

Iron quite evergreen
with that leaf-envious rust
that draws scales of light

And planted it like a masthead
in the centre of the absence
where the garden of old isn't.

* * *
* *
*

And so the Iron Tree
Stands, with its branches
Raised as if in some victory

As if a stand-up prop of a comedy
In knotted grains of irony, and a steely
tree for laughing children to climb.


- 1995, Coober Pedy, South Australia


"The First Tree." Coober Pedy, SA