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From: Vol.06 N.02 – Intersecting Energies

Inland Sea

by Brenda Saunders

Clay pans shrink to pools

in the trail of a wet season

hold a microcosmos

teeming with life

 

Red finned gobies

flash a miniature flame

though tiny succulents

 

Carnivores varied as coral

wave vivid flowers

trick insects

to their water-garden

 

Under a shrinking puddle

snails with no shell

dig in for the long hot spell

 

*

 

Termite mounds signpost

a desert soak after rain

Green shoots on cumbungi

a magic lure for butterflies

 

Banded finches, zit, flit

in button grass, bring sound

and action to the silent pond

 

Dragon flies, water striders

hover, buzz the fetid air

with new life as the system

gives way to wild extremes

 

Low rainfall, high winds

bare earth eroding

every gully under the sun

 

*

 

Stored a million years ago

water from the inland sea

flows in ancient channels

underground

 

Rises in sacred ‘gnammas’

hidden rock mounds

keeping the desert alive

 

Farmers running cattle

bore into the basin

compete with the micro life

on a land with no water

 

Wild creatures struggle

to hold on, losing the fight

through every failing season

Published: July 2019
Brenda Saunders

is a Wiradjuri writer and artist, living in Sydney. She has written three collections of poetry and her work has appeared in major anthologies and journals including Southerly, Quadrant, Australian Poetry Journal, Overland and Best Australian Poems 2013 and 2015 (Black Inc). Brenda is a mentor for the Emerging Indigenous Writers program ‘Black Cockatoo’ at VerityLa.com

An Australian and international
journal of ecopoetry and ecopoetics.

Plumwood Mountain Journal is created on the unceded lands of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to elders past, present and future. We also acknowledge all traditional custodians of the lands this journal reaches.

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