Julie Maclean

Sand flats and salt bush

mean nothing to us

yet in this sparseness

I marvel at the repetition

the clinging on

and the way I manufacture

kindness in needle bushes

parasols against the sun

Some days I could get used to

leaving tracks like wild dogs

an emu and his

chicks, a stumpy or a snake

Once I sailed Cooper Creek

on a flatbed ferry

this time I blow the top layer

off the gibber plain

in a truck         But we have arrived!

invading homes of spitfire birds

the intrigue of a lizard slide

At dusk jibber-jabber

up and down a tonal ladder

Always the urgency of a parrot

Gnats have started their

corroboree in a column of sunshine

before switching down

while a black snake effortlessly

lifts himself from the neck

of the gas bottle like a symbol

Julie Maclean’s third collection Kiss of the Viking (Poetry Salzburg) was published in 2014. Shortlisted for The Crashaw Prize (Salt), her work appears in international journals like Poetry (Chicago), Mslexia and The Best Australian Poetry (UQP). Blogging at juliemacleanwriter.com