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