I Miss the Best Bits, Though

I Miss the Best Bits, Though

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.

Shared with Poets United's Poetry Pantry #488.