#189 Kevin Brophy 'First flight and other stories'

#189 ‘First flight and other stories’

The first time I went up in one of those

I thought the world was shrinking

and the shrinking might never stop

for as long as I was falling upwards.

Here, under this bush

You can find the bush potatoes

if you have a crowbar

handy.

The visiting artists are painting dozens

of canvas shoes (sizes eight and nine).

The season of the black-headed python

is upon us.

Corellas tear our trees apart with beaks and screeches

commanded by some higher angel.

The Brolga knows where bush onions nestle.

We follow to where it’s loosened the soil for us.

Look at them heave themselves into the air over there.

The python has a burrow that goes beneath the stones.

You might fall down there like a shrinking Alice

and disappear if you go too near. You might.

Now sleep, sleep, among the cooling termite mounds

below a big old moon polished just for us tonight.