I caught a windblown secret beneath a singing yew;
I got it from a blade of grass who plucked it from the dew.
The dew had heard it whispered amongst the sighing boughs;
They’d slipped it from the passing breeze without the whys or hows.
The breeze himself had coaxed it from a currawong on the wing –
Her sister on a branch one day let slip this little thing.
She’d overheard it from a rock within the babbling brook,
Who couldn’t keep it to herself this news that she had took.
One moonlit night along her banks was where she’d picked it up –
A thirsty little bandicoot exchanged it for a sup.
The bandicoot was unaware how precious was this nub,
She’d pried by dark from Mother Earth while digging for a grub.
But though I call it secret, it’s a thing that you once knew –
You had it when you fell to earth – small, naked, nameless you.
Before you learned of worldly things and how to busy be,
You held within your tiny heart the secrets of the trees.
© Anne Casey. This poem won 1st Prize in the Henry Lawson Verse & Short Story Competition 2018 – Traditional Verse in Australia, and was published in the Henry Lawson Verse & Short Story Anthology 2018.
Picture No 10546829, Mary Evans / Kings College London
Originally from the west of Ireland and living in Sydney, Anne Casey is author of five critically acclaimed poetry collections. A journalist and legal author for 30 years, her work is widely published internationally, ranking in The Irish Times‘ Most Read. Anne has won literary awards in Ireland, Australia, the UK, the USA, Canada, Hong Kong, India and Lebanon, most recently American Writers Review 2021 and the Henry Lawson Prize 2022. She is the recipient of an Australian Government scholarship and a bursary for her PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Technology Sydney where she researches and teaches. anne-casey.com @1annecasey
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