Monday, January 17, 2011

THE HUNTED

Macquarie Harbour inlet.

Trees not even a body’s width

and so crammed up the slope

of boggy moss and wiry ferns, with

tussocks not grass but swords that slash.

A bastard country.

And now the dogs are after us.

Unseen birds jeer

from scrofulous trunks.

That one’s a wren!

Oh Christ a home song.

The breakers roar out west

but up this creek

the shadows lie still on water

green and black, peat beneath,

[even the swans are backwards black].

and always the ravens cry defeat.

Onwards dragging, sideways tearing.

Take your choice of death.

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