We read of a mice plague in Fitzroy
where cats are too sleepy to chase a thought,
and new ways of counting out the unemployed.
We watch a Cardinal squirm in a Roman court.
He understands his Church lied to him about its heart.
At night the boiling rain and sand are lightning lit.
A plane brought in the mail today, grey bags of it.
The boys here know where old grinding stones
are still embedded in the desert, which hills
are really bushmen and which hollows
were once dingoes, why the lake is blue,
where the fish have gone, who culled the horses,
and who might win the weekend game
between the Mulan and the Halls Creek boys.
They’ll play until the home team wins of course.
The boys tell me of what they know about
the pelican, emu, snake. It is the kind of news
that might take a thousand years to insinuate itself,
to colour the mind with what feels like understanding.
this poem has stayed with me... I came to revisit it today. it's powerful.
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