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Day Four
XI. THE GOAT ABATTOIR
11. The Queer Vegetation Of Hope
twenty separated goats heads with eyes that still shone
for the purpose of seeing, stared straight up into my
heart, it was not my imagination, simply the way the
heads had positioned themselves in the long blooded
grass, the smaller ones stared across to my ankles,
planted in the dirt, queer vegetation, that seemed so alive
as if the shock of its murder hangs around for awhile, to
say: We don't believe you really did that to us, it's just a
bad dream, something to wake up from, back into the
bodies, of the goats that we were, & so it hangs on inside
the machinery, in the heads of the workers, & inside the
box trees & the bark & leaves of stunted red gums, seven
miles clear of the river, it whispers briefly, around the
sides of the slaughterhouse, & its hears the crying of
pretty kids, being fattened up in the paddocks, which
sends it forlorn, & it seems a little lost, as it hangs on
through the feathers of crows, & around my hair like a
flutter of wings, it hangs there, in the air of noon, or low
down, hugging the land like mist, then when there seems
no purpose to fulfill, it moves off silently, later in the
night, miles away, it closes in, pricks the ears of dogs &
sends them growling |
