In the Mitchell River Park,
round Billy Goat's Bend,
along Bull Creek Divide
Track,
scattered with dry gum
detritus, tree-boles stark,
fire-blackened,
some
years back, we decide.
'And doesn't this remind you
of 'The Pioneer' in Melbourne?'
Three epic flashes review
a sobering reflection.
The only buildings here
termite salmon-adobe, severe.
We sit on sandy mudstone
boulders in this still chill
of a dull, spring afternoon,
where silence must accentuate
the buzzing fly's restless will,
curious staccato a dry throat rends,
in almost-empty auditorium,
quiescent egos, little to relate.
Kookaburra! Kookaburra!
Is that a strap-hanging troop
of whooping gibbons in one throat?
And how can this disruption last so long
hysteric as a belly-holding
pointing, rolling
boggled-eyed Joan;
there's more;
there's more unseen
hilarity that rips to bitty bark-shreds glum gloom,
grinning us through khaki leaves.
