Snaking necklaces, embracing the fallen,
Woven in the dead wood and needle nests.
Petals held like a pair of cupped mittens.
Blue creeper, who seems to seek the way of love.
Luminous growth finds light in shade –
Falling upwards.
All the ways to hope in the understorey:
Straddling a branch,
Catching yourself,
Looping over like a gymnast on a high beam.
Teach me your survivor gifts:
To enhance without strangling.
Is that your own path you follow?
Hilary Burden is a British/Australian author, journalist and photographer. She lives and writes from a shack on an acre in the low hills of Swansea. Her memoir, A Story of Seven Summers - Life in The Nuns’ House, was published in 2012 by Allen & Unwin. More of her photography can be seen on Instagram, @hilaryburden.
