Coral Hull: Poetry: Bestiary: Darling River Back Block Sequence/ 10. The Water Pump

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

10. The Water Pump

nnnnnnnnnn the noise skimmed along the surface of
the river from the water pump/ it was like an oversized
mosquito squatting on the side of the bank/ sucking
up the grey water only to spit it out onto the parched
yellow paddocks/ dust rising to the clouds/ a big land
stamped full of sheep tracks and empty of sheep/ here
and there an old red carcass of a heifer/ needing more
water/ bone hung flesh and just a few goats living in the
snags and roots along the river's edge/ and an odd stray
emu left to be rounded up and farmed to death/ nnnnnn

nnn the noise followed us for several hours/ gradually
decreasing in volume/ its intensity fading from our
present/ as it had increased as we approached/ it took
several hours to paddle away/ to get the nnnnnnnnn
out of our ears/ the reflected splash of water freckling
our foreheads/ the weird old water pump persisting out
on the backblocks/ as if sheep had turned away from it
and rushed off along the cracked clay carpet/ the strange
disappearance of flocks into deserts/ now 93% of the
state in-drought and water restrictions hit sydney/ new

south wales going down the gurgler and the quiet old
darling river with shooters still bulleting away on the
banks/ drying itself to non-existence without a whisper/
the river culture now disappears beneath sky so blue it
could make you cry/ I cannot forget the water pump out
on the backblocks/ as if all my dreaming had come to
this dry and lonely paddock/ it is an outback ecosystem
we are sucking off/ the precious natural world dries up
like spit around our mouths/ another kangaroo pizza
for the novelty/ the proud ordering of the coat of arms

in melbourne restaurants along the yarra/ lunch hour
freckled duck dumped in parliament on the desks of the
ministers/ endangered species to go with their coffee and
sandwiches/ soon we'll be eating sand/ throwing sticks
and stones at pelicans/ meanwhile out on the backblocks
the water pump patches up the sheep country and the river
darling holds its flow/ and expands into beautiful reaches
having a great depth of water/ and from two hundred feet
abroad it is literally covered with water fowl/ and somehow it
persists/ the richest flats bordering a river on the rise again

    

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