A Blue Mountains hermit
looks upon a clear pond, sees
the pulse in his sallow jowls
faint as the last morning fog,
quick as a startled gecko –
sees his clothes, rags now
caught on a nest of bones
and he laughs like Kookaburra
before the clear pond
claims him.
Soon, other isolates
surfing the coastal plains,
Southern Cross-eyed
in the deserts, eating honey
ants out of basin
alluvium, hissing like the winds
in the grasslands, salt
and blood of the mighty plateaus
begin to depart.
Where are they, wasted
and alone, going in unison?
It is almost as though a mass capture
or exposure loomed to be evaded
but no such threat exists,
nothing is staked on these lives of
removal, these non-beings
until one day the city folk follow
in selfsame solitude
but screaming like Black Cockatoo
into the bright, turbid river.
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