By Vita Forest
In the gardens of Konchi-In
We learn that there are not four seasons
There are seventy-two
And right now
At this very moment
We are in the season
Where the flat leaves of the lily pads in the pond
turn to yellow and brown
Walk the same paths
Watch the same scenes
With eyes open
By Vita Forest
On that first day
In the gardens of the Imperial Palace
(In the part that you can visit
If you are ordinary
And not royal)
Lucy found an acorn on the pathway
Gleaming in the rain
We looked around but could not see
Totoro
Perhaps he was atop one of the lush leafy trees
That dripped rain onto the soft grass
and the beds of thickly-planted iris
Perhaps he still had his wide black umbrella
And did not need our smaller paler shelters
Translucent as raindrops
By Vita Forest
One day,
While focusing on where
I placed my feet
Amongst the rough uneven rocks
And crawling roots of ancient cherry trees
On the slopes of the Kumano Kodo,
I heard behind me the sound of a
Strider
Fast approaching
Heels ringing on stone.
I glanced behind me
And met
The eyes of a small boy
Who blinked and passed me by
Without a word
Continuing on at the same fast clip
He favoured,
Up around the corner and
Sailing out of sight
Amongst the trees
While I continued slow and crablike
Testing the moss between the rocks
With my pole and two-pronged stick
Finding the firmest way.
And I wondered
Had I imagined him?
This small child
improbably alone
Was he a forest sprite?
floating through the forest
with such confidence?
But later
At a lookout
I saw him again
Swinging his legs
as he munched on a snack
and looked out
At the mountains that receded
in layers
Far into the distance
He sat apart from the
weary walkers resting beneath a shelter
He sat and ate and looked
and waited
His face splitting into a grin
When the rest of his family
Finally
Caught up.
He had proven his point
He was as fast
As the wind.
By Vita Forest
Remember hanging upside down
sweat blooming behind our knees
hair a trailing shadow flame
hands trailing the ground in surrender?
The fig leaves have heavy bodies
Snap when you bend them
snap and spray
They have solid reliable edges
Like the bats
journeying above us
black umbrellas darting  over
pink seashell sky
I lie back on the picnic blanket
and watch them as fireworks glitter overhead
and ants get drunk
in forgotten gulps of champagne
By Vita Forest
There’s a poem in
The way we hate vegemite
And the way others don’t
The excuses she makes for missing
every single meeting
The vibrating cat that sits perched on my lap
Like a humming loaf
The scarlet red of the flowers on the coral tree and
the way they fall apart if you remove them from the tree
The smiling girl in the photo who just last week
tried to kill herself
The rock that you step over on the path
In the shape of a heart
The shriek as we leap the channel surging back to the sea
And land heavy-heeled in the retreating water
The light patter of rain
On the hood of my new black raincoat
The bowl full of shells
That sits in the middle of the table.
Poems
everywhere.
By Vita Forest
Where you enter
we heard
The angry screeches of white cockatoos
Glimpsed white flashes wheeling in the blue sky
above the silver-trunked treetops
Watched as they swung around and about and around again
As we descended into green shade
You may hear the sound of six species of frogs
And we did
or at least we heard one
singing its percussive scraping
as we picked our way beside the creek
over mossy rocks and
fretted roots aslant
under the lacy shelters of tree ferns
Continue straight to where a track comes in from the left
and follow the blue wren
It was the blue wren that showed us the way
The hop of the wren along the dried spikes of grass
The scratch of the bush turkey in the undergrowth
And down in a dappled gully
A warbling chorus of currawongs
Across the bridge, stop for lunch
Sitting cross-legged by the river and
pinching a peck of grated carrot
on a smattering of grated beetroot
laid on the soft spongy whiteness of
the halved baguette piled with shards of
cheese and khaki rounds of
pickles and leaves of
lettuce and slivers of
translucent cucumber closed between
the covers of two golden crusts
and two rows of teeth.
At the first junction
Walking past the facilities and
missing the ghostly W
that means the girls enter
at the door marked OMEN and
Return to the start of the walk.
By Vita Forest
Lying on the surface
While striped fish streak through my fingers
And white rays shimmy down into the sand
And kelp wrings forwards and back on the tide
Hiding and revealing the groper
And its widening and shrinking jaw
Leaning on the wooden rail
While heavy clouds squat on the horizon
And the sky loses itself in the sea
And the procession of paddlers follow the leader
Tracing a curve around the shoreline
And swerve to avoid the snorkelers engrossed in the sights below.
By Vita Forest
In our own worlds
Looking at the hidden worlds in the water
In the pools left by the sea.
Balancing, bending, picking, choosing, rubbing rocks through finger tips
Standing in a field of shells
Speckling sand
Shards of glass rubbed smooth by the sea
The helmet of a crab
The tail of a lobster
Beads of seaweed
Chunks of golden sponge
Hefted lightly in my hand.
Pockets percussive with clattering collections
Watching monumental molluscs move
Millimetre by millimetre
Twisting paths over black boulders
Water winking in the indents of rocks
Reflecting the sky, the clouds, the light, the face peering down to the flash of opalescence deep down amongst the dark
A row of molluscs huddled in a crevice
Warrigal greens sprawling over black stones
Balls of raindrops rolling on the leaves of nasturtiums
Looking back at the rearing hill with its indents of cow hoofs and the chatter of hidden birds
Through eyes, through camera lenses, through words shouted into the wind and the muttered impressions in my mind
Saving them, holding them til I reach pen and paper, like a handful of sea-smooth stones.
By Vita Forest
Springing from the sandstone
Slicing into the water
Fingers first
Feet last
The water cold and clear and shocking.
He pushes it behind him in great armfuls
Hears the pop and fizz of fish chanting in the shadows
The quiet burble of water filling his ears.
He erupts from the water
And she watches from the window
Sipping tea, spying.
Enjoying the water streaming off his shoulders
The flick of his head sending the hair off his face
The spout of water he spits from his mouth
Returning it to the harbour.
She watches as he strokes off towards the zoo
The spirals of steam stroking her face
Like his hands did
Not long ago.
He swims
His eyes at the level of the water
Now above, now below
Rising and dipping
In, out
Air, water
Alternating clarity with blur.
Then he sees it
Spinning across the surface
A bobbing brown bulb
A traveller
That fits in the palm of his hand.
He sweeps it before him
Bats it, flings it
A ball, a toy, a message in a bottle
A promise.
Back on land
Scrambling over mossy rocks in bare feet
Cradling the bulb
Slick and shiny in his fingers
Until under a fall of scarlet crescents
he sees the dark soil.
Searching for a stick and
Digs, scrapes, turns up the earth
Pushes in the bulb
Finding it a home.
Not knowing what he has sown
A plant, a garden, a love, a tribe, a story
All there
beneath the warm earth.
By Vita Forest
Max
Shrieking though the crashing surf
Slings strands of seaweed
Festoons his shoulders
Drapes his head
with Rapunzel’s hair gone green or
A khaki feather boa or
Rusty rapper’s chains
Strung with salt-filled beads.
Max
Rolling and leaping over the breakers
Flinging a length of kelp
Around and
around
Over his head
Like the blades
Of the curious open-topped helicopter we watch
Tracing the coastline overhead.
Max
Amid the islands of kelp floating
In and out on the waves
Throwing himself backwards over the
Foaming breakers
Like a
Happy seal
Falling back against the force of the water
Grinning fit to burst.
Jotterizing 