You are always beginning again—
it is only a matter of degree:
you walk into a room, forgetting
the book you came looking for, walk out
with a dirty glass you lay down
another ring without realising
like a tree it doesn’t hurt a bit
You are always beginning again:
you walk into the forest, forgetting,
there is a storm, there is a morning,
you walk out, trailing possibilities
from your hands they drip, like
snapped branches There was a storm,
there was a morning There was
a name, once, a specific and grievous
history, a mobile number, a particular sequence
of houses, an immunity to certain indignities,
there was more and more forgetting
Entering a room full of bonsai, you breathe
moss, and cypress, and the clean, bald smell
of long-dry river-stones The air hums
with age, with what the trees have known
and have forgotten and will know again
they are always beginning
you breathe, you dream you have been
reborn as a small ceramic deer
You sit under the momiji, the scarlet
baby’s hands of the Japanese maple,
in a forest small enough
to fit on a dinner plate
and begin
again
Melinda Smith is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Goodbye, Cruel (Pitt Street Poetry, 2017). She is a winner of the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry.
