James Walton #26 A Dairy Hand On a Hill

A Dairy Hand On a Hill

I milked a season

in the high range near Timboon

for a Bavarian named Rudi,

who built a Black Forest house

out of place against eucalypts

like those old special effects ,

a wobbly head stuck on the wrong body

land so fat the kelpies

pretended to bring the cows in,

spent their time fossicking

in earth as black as truffle

then red in deep Shiraz

His daughter would say

Look the Sky pours into the Sea

and that she didn’t love me,

was going back to Germany

so tanned she’d vanish in a paddock

I had to look close to catch,

an auburn dancing shimmer

she drifted in light then flew by

left me a demijohn stranded,

a becalmed catamaran

but sometimes she wrapped me in Sienna

just for a while You’re my Man.