Published in The Evergreen: A New Season in the North, Wordbank, UK, 2017
and in Flett's chapbook Vessel, Garron Publishing, 2016
Arrival
When we finally reach
the mangroves, the thrang
of trees sinders out into unobstructed water
the trees
untangling into
air
threads hanging from branches
like cut puppet-strings
the canopy of leaves like the dropped
shroud
of a no-longer-needed
Deus-ex-machina.
We hardly ken what to do
with all the light that keeps happening
the open palm of the water uplifted, heezing the light
up amongst the trees
trunks deepening into
the water, into
the sand, the long threaded roots
assembled in jazzy
patterns. .
Here, everything trembles:
rainbow lorikeets in the leaves above us
orb-weavers on invisible webs
swallowtails in the blossom.
The only thing that is solid and still is
the clagginess of a white cocoon
stuck to the bark in front of us.
We look back
through the fankle
of trees and there’s no sign
of the path we took, just the weight
of all the time we wasted shifting
inside us
gathering in our eyes
and dropping into
the water at our feet
saying
I’m sorry
I’m sorry
I didn’t use this properly
I did nothing
big with it.
The water recycles it
back into our eyes as if to say
hey! everything’s
made of little
— the littleness
is what makes it
bonny
and we see how the thrang of trees
comes down to the one
whose roots
we find purchase on
and the reflection
of that tree in the water
and the reflection
of the reflection
in our eyes
and how the thrang of creatures
zooms in to one totie specimen
asleep in a cocoon
sweeled in the furlongs
of
thread
it has spun
around
itself
waiting
inside
until
it is ready
and we know
that whatever
track we took
it didn’t
matter
it was always
going to end
with us
standing
in the
mangroves
our eyes
thirled
with reflected
light.