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THE DAPPLED LIGHT OF A LATE AFTERNOON RETURN
I am waitng at the night yard gate, like I always do each day,
scanning the long stretch, towards the quiet darkening east
for speckled movement, a river of soft voluptuous bodies,
dappled white and browns, and splashed with charcole grey,
relieved to see my little flock, turning through a distant gate.
Sheep are always coming home in the early evening,
moving together, flopping ears and fat tails spinning,
weaving from pools of lime sunlight into twiggy shade,
In the stifling humidity of a wet season lacking rain.
C'mon, Mary, Pebbles, Cindy, Fawny, Bam Bam and Little One.
C'mon now! The light is lengthening. The weary day is winding down.
It's like a big clock about to stop, so the stars can jump up!
Soon the soft and needy mouths will be whiffing down the barely,
from the green feed troughs, in the old night yard, where it's safe.
The property is as long as midday during a dry season winter,
each set of eyes a page to be read, each generation a chapter.
They are returning, returning, here they come my little flock,
all the way up the dry sloping paddock and into my story book,
where the fences are crooked and paddocks overcome by weeds.
At the end of each day, trusting my call, coming home like they do,
some with heads upon shoulders, others frollick and kick up dust,
in the golden dappled mango orchard light, of a late afternoon return.
C'mon, Angel, Manni, Nannie, Narnie, Pebbles and Tyson.
C'mon now! The light is lengthening. The weary day is winding down.
Everything moving to clockwork as the day ends in ruins.
Soon the burdiken duck will join my own, head under shiny wing,
in the frenetic activity of an evening farm, preparing for night.
Then birds will sleep and dream with dew on their sensitive beaks
and I will smile at the marching muskies on freckled webbed feet
and the reaching arms of the old dying mangoes can do no more,
as their giant ghostly grey termite filled branches, crack and fall,
a new moon rising in the east and the dying light of burning stars.
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