rave sketch - the water truck

where headwind-stiffened

prayer flags

strung as markers along the rabbit-proof fences

pigmented with lichen, rust and

ripped clothes, sidelining

a final single-lane

decline to the campgrounds

end – where prayer flags end

          a water truck’s bulk begins.

crowns at the ridgeline. full warhead tank concealed

behind the cabin and ingot-

sized hazards strobing, before

in the down-going, a wholeness comes to light

like the full extent of a King

Brown uncoiling on a highway

shoulder, or French braid wound

tightly round a woman’s hair like a hose

come loose in a difficult sutra.

a many-threaded scream, like the wholeness, grows.

stilling heat begrudges

          the sudden ecstasy.

it’s the bi-hourly sweep to saturate the dust

pale as David’s moulting

golden retriever’s black-cushioned

bed by his swag

(rolled rough, bow-tied like boots).

without it, the festival site would

whirly-whirl into oblivion.

it’s the bi-hourly centrifugal force – recycled

water mists a dust-like drift, a

constant smokescreen the truck

emerges from, prophetic ten-tonne mirage.

          storm smell

sings its rites to Lily and Aden

like sheet lightning to a crowd

milling on the shore

of a lukewarm ocean

eager to night-float in the flashes

and see everything.

          storm smell in the uncontested

aridness splinters midday

          samadhi. for their soil-

tinged ablutions, south camp

devotees sweep from far and wide with pack

hearts pack fervour, a joyful

counterpoint to the mania of

an overdose or other sobering hurt.

they jostle for position in

the slipstream of the massive

mandala till sated –

drenched. then they disappear

as the watered paths stomped to mud

turn bone dry

          in mercuric blinks.

when the truck is within his sights

and running his ken

Aden goes. left alone

in the five-tarp shelter

flagging lamely in the treeless wind

Lily gives in and goes too.

and although she is boiling

despite having queued forever

that morning for a five-dollar

          two-minute shower

she feels little urge to duck

her whole head of braided blonde hair beneath the sprinkler

loosing water only 
good for this. content instead

with the vivifying waves

of vapour, and with the way the waves

age Aden’s beard and eyebrows.

content also to watch, skirt stuck to her body

the squat ceaseless

rainbow make its rounds.