David Wood is a writer and musician living at Springbrook in the Gold Coast Hinterland. His writing includes poetry, novels and, more recently, an extended philosophical treatise, Plato’s Cave which draws upon scientific, philosophical and mystical insights. David has recently built an octagonal sandstone dome in which he lives and writes. He has been Principal Piccolist with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and has contributed to many publications including The Canberra Times and The Courier-Mail. David has been a guest writer at the Adelaide Festival of Arts.

Butterflies

Two butterflies
are flying through the orchard,
making love in flight.

I would not have thought
it possible – but there they are,
look,
joined bodies
crisscrossing the budding
branches of the fruit trees
where the wind
has caught your skirt,
lifting it into the air
like butterfly wings.

Who taught you to kiss
like that?

I am coming down the
track between the trees
to the brown dam,
to the grasses
heavy-headed with
spring.

And the day
opens like a palm,
a pianist’s hand
I reach up to and
hold and gently
draw down towards me
into the grasses,
the fruit trees
sweet as the
nectar on your lips
when I taste you

Morning

You woke and turned, your head upon the pillow
sculpted in a silvered cave of air,
naked, lying by the open window,
stars rampant in the tangle of your hair.

Last night we slept upon the drifting waters;
the moon sang like an entering lover
secret songs that lovers’ lips might whisper,
hair falling through the moonlight like a star.

A kiss to brush your eyes into the sunlight,
to gentle you from sleep, a lullaby
of hearts so close that sing upon the waters,
flowers in the iris of an eye.