day’s heat dissipates in each water-
rippling toss of light   spreading out
between hunched bodies of granite  
smooth and polished by melting snow   

              later   along the winding durry
of a road   a wombat lies like a pile of ash
or expanding is a popcorn bag   earth-
turning through galactic microwave

*

hear what it is   in a language landscaped
for flies that seek life   forgetting everything
their moment renders absent   gauging the langue
of a land scraped   a brown and black brumby
grazing on alpine grasses   watched by caravans
of grey nomads   traversing a final respite from
that life-of-work ethic   beside the Yarrangobilly River     
and in the distance  

                                           ASBESTOS

*

freezing against the tent’s polyester
night down to 5 degrees      morning
sun shifts across outcrops of limestone
and what could be a Bogong moth
in the ruptured history of my oatmeal
when sometimes there isn’t much to make
of a windscreen in the rain   let alone mountains
capsuled and propelled   on canvas   en plein air  
say an image say an image say what it is
to come to terms with humiliation here  
for how can one relate or integrate inter-
twine and distribute if not the weight
then the sheering idea of owning land  
when rising leads to more than rising will allow  
tripped up on some road to Escondido
take the centre   the way it rotates
can be pulled apart   cracked by sun
for sometimes you’re simply off with the chips
and even here in the dark not always night
there remains this type of iron ore machine
that crawls through your mind and sleeps

*

dead snow gum sea of cross-
hatching white in the mouth of
Gonipterus scutellatus shooting
vertically into blue   into sweeping turns
it isn’t a sign that reads ‘something which falls
will continue to’   it’s a statement reverse
parked   a morning that refuses to sing

*

              afternoon’s goat scratches its head
by the Snowy River   rustling leaves
blurred in the circles drawn
by platypuses in the water

                             and outside Jindabyne
(inside a small Australia)
on the back of a Japanese ute

                                                          PROUD