3. THE LAND ABOVE THE VICTORIAN BORDER IS MOVING
the sky is clearing across the well rained winter land,
it's a three mile walk to the property letterbox,
in the city there are little centres of importance, out in the bush forget it,
for rain the plover calls out in the night, out along the plush green powdery paddocks,
all your life in a city routine, out here forget it, you are driving in mauve,
it takes a whole day to burn off some rubbish and to walk to a patch of murray pines,
to see the sky clearing and know the well-rained land beneath them,
see the slight undulation, see along the property fence as it rolls down
and up along the rolling rounded cupped oval borders of pastures,
the pregnant chestnut mare with her green canvas coat got the wind up her,
it's hard to distinguish between wind and horse,
i think she will topple, a projection of my clumsiness,
her foal is already flying inside her above the sodden paddock,
the low roar of the wind that carries snow, it's like your mouth and a long breath out,
the wind is hard to distinguish from new south wales,
if we turn the scene upside-down the grasses and pastures blow across clouds,
the snow gum and black box sweep the skies blue,
it's a windy winter that escapes into the bones to crumble their powder,
i rattle like property gates with the cold creak of a hinge,
it's a wind of snow from the snowy mountains of the great dividing range,
the fat white meat pigeon has been rescued and sleeps with the chooks, midday is frozen solid,
the pigeon rests beneath the thick feathers, the wind is kept out of its small place,
meanwhile, the chooks are out along the frozen hectares trading mud,
they are scratching up corn, grass, wheat and worms,
the big roosters are crowing all the short dark day, they are puffed up and randy,
the tender wobble from golden combs, black tail feathers blow like streamers
from warm chunky bodies, as they rush up and down the outside wire of the chook pen,
dogs are racing particles of wind that we fail to see, we are warmed by the joy in them,
now we are back on the road, the twisty black box with black on the bark passing by glass,
the land above the victorian border is moving, the eh holden station wagon moves across it,
we have left our city homes behind, we are starting by branching off close to the base,
there are wide gulfs of sky in-between the branches of grey box,
'whereas,' john says, 'black box occupies the land and sky in a more fulsome way,'
out on the level of the plain, crows hop away from the edge of the red road,
a windmill out there in the field that cuts through air is rotating its shafts of sunlight,
high above the overgrazed land, land that has been bitten to death,
thorn bush is moving quickly across it, in stubborn prickly clumps of carpet |
