
Judith Wright Poetry Prize, first place: Acacia Land
Can you see this picture – in Ngiyampaa and Gamilaraay country?
in the outback, a Toyota police car cruised on a misty, quiet as death, night,
near the outback town of Wilga, a tidy town
gunjie white wagon, bull bar dripping red dust, driving over dirt roads,
the holding of desperate crying men and women with blood-spattered cushions,
stuffing hanging out
passing silently through a desert cattle station, biggest in the whole world,
rabbit goat ravaged,
a monument to what Whitefella gubbahs could steal, keep and clear fell trees
and wreck with abandonment in
God’s Own Country
Acacia shrub lands, saltbush, blue bush, copper burrs, bluebells, grevilleas and
spindly wattles,
rusty sheds abandoned, farmland littered stones, sun set blazing pink,
‘Assumption of the Virgin’ sky
the dark tree line on a high river bank, the Darling River,
a brown dead dribble, a dribble
they see a running dinewan, emu and crashing lightning, it’ll set your hair on fire,
but no water ngaru-gi, fit for drinking
sky now jet black with diving stars, the Milky Way wiggled a black ribbon over
head in the Dreaming Serpent’s path
pearl tongue flickered around Orion’s belt, the moon rose, gunjie drove on beneath its
luminous glow
the vehicle lurched over rocks, getting dark
yellow head light glow, glimpsed old tyres piled against falling down fences of
barbed wire
while thorn bushes crowd the wooden posts, strung with the crucified corpse of a
wedge-tailed eagle,
its great yellow beak bent to kiss the earth
they rattled past abandoned lives with rusty signs: ‘BP Service Station’ in
red peeling paint,
gazed at forlorn building, wondered whose life had been spent out in the middle of the
semi desert of broken trees,
followed by a bandaar roo, little spirit fellas, gabinya wandabaa, all brown and
hairy yelling: ‘give us back our dead’
he saw a shadow move inside ruins, a windowed screaming woman’s face
he shifted in his hot sticky car seat, chewed his nails, feeling deep unease, a rising,
foreboding, sickness, in waves
chest tight, a vice and maybe he would have a heart attack any day now
and that would teach them.
shut that steel trap of teeth and wait until the noise died down, they would stop asking
questions after a while
drive slowly and lean forward to see grey mist lifting from a hot road
stones strewn across landscape like giant toys and red gum trees hovered
sensations of total inexplicable anguish grew grew, until around a bend:
a ghost, a goonge, in white ochre and blood, in the headlights, a few seconds
his semi-naked dark body trembling, his head gashed and flowed with gore
eyes shone like powerful light beams
the semi-transparent image shivered, pleaded with hands outstretched
his mouth crying: help, hold me in your arms, a warm embrace,
ghost fingers trembled, a drop of blood fell to earth, his eyes wept to watch it
stain the sand
police officers gaped with wide eyed gunjie terror
car brakes slammed, screeched, he gripped the wheel, yelped and swerved
crunched into thorn bushes, rattling gravel
eyes staring, face transformed, a white mask
he tried to restart, the starter whined, whined and he turned the key, again and again, it
crunched, twisted and quietly died
near Wilga, a tidy town
Image: Josh Bartok / Flickr
Read the rest of Overland 234
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