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Day Four
XI. THE GOAT ABATTOIR
14. Crying At The Sliprails
It's okay for you to cry, as one by one you are sectioned off,
up the wooden ramps, towards the killing box & okay
for you to bang your curly horns against the tin.
& it's okay, for your cracked & dusty hoof, to stamp out its last thunder
into this silence we call Ngemba.
As you called out to me, with your brilliant markings & your shaggy coats.
As you called with your silent eyes.
But your rescue was out of reach for me,
as I watched you, voiceless, enter the cutting & skinning machinery.
As I said goodbye to you, as you were murdered & butchered,
as you were swallowed by the industry.
So it's okay for me to cry,
& for the dangerous burning sun, to dry the tears on my collar bone
& okay for me, to be ruined & broken down & crying for a time.
There is always the goat who will penetrate you,
who will look into you, glassy eyed, resilient,
unresigned to the blade, to the breaking of the neck.
& beside its stubborn terror,
there is always the goat who will tremble inside,
as its old knees buckle & scrape
& these are the goats you must leave behind,
as your air passages fill with blood.
In the place we call Ngemba,
where the crows stoop on the sliprail & bend sideways in the heat,
sweating beneath the feathers, across the twisted stands of box,
filling their day, with my performance.
But I am too shaken, to frighten them off, holding onto the sliprail,
the driftwood at the end of the line.
My blood runs deep & cold
& the crows were many, when the sun set,
finally on Ngemba
& when a million cold stars, boomed out behind the water tank
& when the frost hushed & settled, on the shaggy hides
& when the goats slept their last night, standing in the holding pens,
by the killing box left empty & cold,
by the men who had gone home into Bourke,
with the blood in their boots
& their big hands lotioned with grease
from the goats' oily twist,
as their necks were forced into snapping.
It's okay, in the sandy sea of despair, to hold on, sister.
My body the vehicle for sobbing, for the passing of wild goats,
It's like an old tree shaking, rattling its seeds to the top.
It's like driftwood breaking up, inside.
Geez, it's cold that wind, it's gettin' cold. A few big stars around already.
All the old black crows unsettling, after centuries.
Every so often, a scream from the killing box, had shattered the air,
so that the crows lifted off, before settling again,
as those goats died, hideously.
From here, it is easy to see,
that beyond the shape of the body,
& the places we choose to inhabit,
that the scream was as much human, as it was goat.
& the black crows said: It's okay, sister, for you to cry & for a while
to be broken down, in the ruined place we call Ngemba. |
