on the road from darwin to katherine a dirty white
ball of pelican/ its yellow-rimmed black eye &
confusion of feathers burning dry/ the grey road
sending up the heat of pelican fumes & the old
dry season to overhead build up/ october tales of
dehydrated birds far from flocks & waterholes/
when we stopped the car the pelican hopped a
few feet on its skinny grey legs & shot up the red
embankment/ we chased it down with towels &
blankets/ putting its slow death to rest in the
darkness of rags/ an end to the natural pelican
cull/ soon i was crawling in bird lice/ pincers
digging into my fingertips/
they were mainly in
my pants/ all i could do was pluck them off &
flick them out the window onto the burning road/
lice infested highways or lice sizzling & hopping
mad as they hit the grey tar/ or thrown backwards
into hot worlds of insects & car exhaust fumes/
i picked them off myself one by one/
hugging a
blanket-wrapped pelican/ its small black eye
observing me & the way our paths had crossed
in pelican territory/ the bird's dehydrated beak
clapped weakly on my arm before it fell against
my chest/ its rubbery neck crumpling down/ in
healthier days it might have swallowed me/ now
old bag of bones with wings/
wings that were once
so broad that they shadowed the katherine gorge/
reflecting ripples of warm brown currents & ochre
rockface/ wings bringing down breezes & shadows
to cold blooded reptiles & old rock art/ breezes
containing thirteen kilograms of pelican movement
& twenty five years of pelican thought/ this big
old pelican/
circumnavigating a wide land cupped
by stars & as a story within the stars/ or during the
day as a slowly moving focal point in blue/ carrying
the dry season drought in its warm belly & daylight
in the huge old pouch of its beak/ the pouch leeched
clean by sun & clung onto by lice the size of stones/
so that the great bird plunges from one thousand
metres of flight to the rocky red earth/
so that it
lies on the side of the road & displays its death to
tourists travelling south from the wet/ from the
heart drenching rain that it will not swallow/ as
it had swallowed aquatic animals/ living by the
rise & fall of the inland water levels/ the outback
downpour of drops bursting on its dead eye
washing off ants/
at the end of the world there
will be pelicans/ flocked & centred their huge
wings flapping out that mysterious wind which
howls down deserts/ they say that both sexes
perform pouch rippling/ in which they clap
their bills shut several times a second/ & the
pouch ripples like material in a strong breeze/
pelicans bring on wind & water to hatch the
ugliest fledglings in the world/ & when the sun
touches them they shine pink as a pelican's bill/
the bill which comes stretching from the small
black eye/ which sends out sound to clap shut the
day/ extends into fledglings & watery sunsets
