I never realised the rock was female
Till I arrived,
And she showed me —
Lying belly up,
gravid with meaning, pregnant with life.
So generous, frightening in her clarity
As I trace the memories of her past couplings with the Rain —
The water caressed and cradled in her fertile clefts
And today, despite the dry,
squeezed between her curves and folds
Over ancient, bloody trails
To
drip
in
this
clear
waterhole
silence — then the bat
coming this close to my face
sound of tearing silk
they call them shit birds —
ibis — those angels in flight
farmers' poetry
cows here wear earrings
No. 9 tastes windfall apples
with blue-black tongue
clickety-clack
over old wooden bridge
loose teeth and small change
down the mountain
larvae scribble bark
I pocket a scroll
Clickety-Clack & Down the Mountain published in Rusted Hinge (2006); Silence—then the bat in Poetrix 1(1994); Cows and Earrings in Hobo (1997); Ibis in Moments 1(1996); Uluru first appeared in Poetrix 3 1994.