fern that sprints across the sand
and aches goats, I cast my eyes
in panic through the yellow
pea flowers, the native cherries
budding token fruit; you hid
me in reverie, the farm which
cropped these fields of brown
and green knees, the slashing
and the pressing and the
company of cloudy hair;
you're vanished, lost in the scrub.
grow before my eyes; unfurl
your carnival of fronds.
Ben Walter's poetry, essays and experimental short stories have been widely published in Australian journals, including Meanjin, Griffith Review, Southerly, Overland and The Lifted Brow. He won the 2016 John Shaw Neilson Poetry Award, and his debut novel manuscript won the people’s choice component of the 2017 Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Prizes.