Oxbows

Sydney to Melbourne





At night I see oxbows,

water drops whipping their way
back & forth along
land shorn of trees
in neat edged farms
and rural salt-etched
dreams -
mine is not this place,
wrapped in dusty promises
they’re strips
of puzzle pieces, brown
amongst hazy green,
pock-marked by failed
subsidies and fire-trails
that lead nowhere.
dotted with clouds and
mercury dams, the
parched land flies by
under steel and
a sliding aquamarine
but I can still see
houses on the
table-cloth below

and I’ll still dream
of dust-bowls,
clouds like ak-ak
bursts as far as
the eye can’t see,
where virgin trees dot
a jig-saw land