#206 ‘History’
once the morning
pie is finished
coffee
morning talk
on the shop
verandah
a smoke
an errand for
mother and baby
he takes us
out past wild
bulls
fattened on
buffalo grass
past grey brolgas serene
as ballerinas standing
round
the season’s last
holes
past salt wattle
coolibah
cockroach-bush and
kestrel
to a white beach
by the side
of a lake we must
now imagine
he slides from
beneath tree roots
a smooth speckled green
egg shaped rock
like a joke or a
trick
he says if you hold
it
(see how heavy it
is)
long enough
it will change
colour
he shows us with a
wave
across the sand
spearheads flints
stone cutting
knives
chipping and
flenching tools
some transparent
as glass
some bright orange
in our hands
we the last here witness
what’s left for us
to leave out here
with the ignorant
bull kings
rolling and
farting
on their fine
white sand
its shells and old
stones
pressing tics from
their hides
while above them
a perfect brolga
makes flying
look as if it came
first.
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