barefoot breakfast inside the mulberry trees of Florence Park

high up inside the mulberry tree
my eager limbs mysteriously grow
arms elongating with an ape-like reach
following my eyes to the darkest fruit
as my toes hold good and true

my fingers stretch
and reach
and tug each blue-black berry from its umbilical stalk
with ancient satisfaction

and the flavours that now burst between my palate and my tongue
are brimful, pressed down, and overflowing still with the night’s black splendour
and the morning’s sweet and earthy dew

(all of summer's other berries pale next to thee)

and as the rising sun wraps itself around my kitchen canopy
I let the alluvial juices dribble from my mouth
and tumble from my chin
onto skin and cloth and leaf and bark

thus blood-stained by my early quarry
deep deep from within my joyful belly
rises a greedy
and prehistoric
gratitude