The gully is numb today
eyes everywhere
as spirit winds
from the red heart
blow smoke, flames
and tangled atoms
into her dry hair of wild casuarina,
eucalyptus obliqua
Her belly soon fills
with rare hooded plover,
baby echidna, quolls
In her mouth
a caged platypus
swims from side to side
banging
against her teeth
She spits it out
as charcoal
like a lorikeet
spitting seeds
while a lyre bird
mimics
the cries of frogs—
Growling,
Banjo,
Striped Marsh, Spade-foot—
too slow too late
to leap or crawl
from the boiling pools
of her sacred eyes