as the bus careens downhill
somewhere between Inverell and Grafton,
quicker than my camera can click –
a tree with a bulbous trunk
as if it grew in the outback;
a bare, domed rock half the height
of the tree it stands beside;
a sudden bank of crags.
We have time to see, though I don’t snap,
the wallaby bodies beside the road. It’s not
that car drivers hit them, so much as they
who hit the cars – ancient beings without
road sense not needed when
this continent and its creatures formed.
Now we move very slowly
between thick banks of spindly trees
on a one-vehicle-wide descent.
It’s long. Police let a line of cars,
going north or south, traverse in turn.
We crawl, then finally gather speed.
I miss a startling gully, deep, amongst
the surrounding trees on level ground.
************
Later, back home, I discard
lots of blurry shots. I notice I haven’t kept any
showing a river shrunk to mud puddles
after the years of drought. I wanted
viewers to see and know – but after all
my quick snaps couldn’t convey the worst.
I live in a green part of Australia.
In just a few days, more showers are forecast.
The view from my window here is far
from that recent bus trip. Even there –
past the dusty brown paddocks – trees
tangle together, covering distant hills.
Hard to credit how farmers live in despair
for themselves, their crops, their stock.
Are we still ‘The Lucky Country’? Yes of course.
But some are luckier than others. And
it was always thus. The land enchants,
entices us. The ancient land, like its creatures,
has not learned the ways of civilisation:
mother and killer…. Look at my pretty pictures.
