song of the red paths
I
Scarlet dusk whispers along red clay veins,
Ancient roads of dust unfurl beneath soft feet,
Where ancestors tread in the pulse of fading light,
Their voices rise in dust-laced melodies.
Beneath a sky of ember and ash,
I hear the echo of a thousand journeys.
II
My fingertips taste the grit of earth’s spine,
Each grain a note in the land’s old song.
I trace the grooves where waters once danced,
Mapping memory in every crack.
The red paths hum beneath my soles,
Binding present breath to past’s wide expanse.
III
Moon-lanterns spring to life among ironbark crowns,
Phantoms of flame drifting through wind-bent leaves.
Myth and marrow twist in silvered beams,
Spirits weaving ribbons of feather and fire.
I follow flickering beacons through the scrub,
Each glow a promise of stories untold.
IV
I stand knee-deep in the river of root and sand,
Listening to sap’s soft confession.
The gum’s sinews pulse with living rhyme,
A covenant of light and longing.
Here, each furnished knot holds a vow:
To carry memory where footsteps roam.
V
Night unfurls its tapestry of cloven stars,
Constellations carved by dreaming hands.
Beneath their vigil, I hum the land’s refrain,
Chord and chorus of blood-tethered kin.
Roots stretch down through time-worn clay,
While wings lift the soul to boundless sky.
VI
I walk between earth’s solid heartbeat
And sky’s unending breath of possibility.
Dust unsettles in the hush of prayer,
Red paths guiding me beyond each horizon.
In stillness I taste the boundary fuse—
Where longing ends and belonging begins.
VII
Fireflies cast furtive sparks upon the track,
Small flames like spirits reclaiming ground.
Their lantern-light flicks across my heart,
Carving hoofprints in the room of my ribs.
I become both seeker and sanctuary,
Bearing witness to the land’s own fire.
VIII
So let us sing this hymn of red pathways,
You and I, earth-born and star-bound.
Our voices blend in the dusk’s low chorus,
Roots intertwined with feathered flight.
In the hush where wings and roots converge,
We become the song of all who wander home.