#43 Kevin Brophy 'Invisible work'

Ten of us
crammed in behind two propellers
with the pilot eating his
slightly odorous lunch
from a tupperware box

Earplugs in all our ears
and a strange world below
done in serpents of green
with clay coloured water,
stripes of dark ochre,
then somehow bright green swathes
sometimes jagged low hills
shrug up out of the heat
below
trees spread out
like a panicked herd
across a plain
or gather round a blue lake
a purple patch
or a grey river lost in meander

We land at Billiluna (red sand
a cushion for us),
Ringer Soak (stonier, rumbling under us
as we slew a little across it),
Halls Creek (tarmac, perfect)
and finally Broome (beside the great lump
of the sea against the mangroves),
and each time we pull the yellow plugs out
as the pilot opens his side window
to get a better look at his invisible propellers.