Coral Hull: Poetry: Bestiary: Darling River Back Block Sequence/ 1. The Postcard

I MACKENZIE KNIGHT I A CHILD OF WRATH A GOD OF LOVE I FALLEN ANGELS EXPOSED I

CORAL HULL: BESTIARY
DARLING RIVER BACK BLOCK SEQUENCE

1. The Postcard

conversations in pubs along the darling begin with a
round of shouts and where the river starts/ way up over
the queensland border or somewhere between walgett
and brewarrina/ 2737 kms of the river system like a lazy
brown snake/ slow progress through snags and towns/ and
queer gums reaching down from steep banks/ into the
wedge of earth meets water/ the flatness of the darling
country either side of the flow/ unbroken land/ tinder
dry and ready to burst into flame/ alluvial soil with its
cover of mitchell grass, saltbush and coolabah trees/
a summer red country that turns my father's throat
to gravel/ 'i love the red country, coral'/ and he loves the
winter's dusty light from a weaker milky sun/ and
gnarled misshappen gums in billabongs and waterholes/
cloud formations rising up over the rooves and cool wide
verandahs of hotels/ as relief from the weather/ looking
down over the main street alongside the river/ polluted
by run off from cattle feedlots/ and the broken down soil
of the wool country/ rot away flocks trampled into earth
by the farmer's boot/ and the glare of silent land beyond the
fence/ where cattle with mud swollen hooves congregate
on bush tracks in winter/ and scraggly sheep leave a single
line of footprints through louth in summer/ old lethargic
towns constructed of timber and galavanised iron/ cling to
the river which once gave them life/ and the darling steep
banked and brown flows in isolation/ in the north west
corner of new south wales/ a shy and fickle river prone to
flooding and drying up/ impossible to navigate in summer
and snag ridden in winter/ the darling long and snake like/
meandering across vast areas of semi arid country/
requires maximum love and effort

    

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