You can see
By Coral Carter
"you can see forever she said—we sat in camp chairs over looking cretaceous paleo channels—exist still from time when land masses pulled back—cracked and broke—rainforests quaked wet—mountains smashed up— blades of water carved new beds—and mammals were set to rule
above us jezebels did the butterfly polka from native pine to native pine—laying a pheromone trail on the hilltop breeze—semaphored the sex message in gold and black wing beats against the dense two pm blue—where the moon played peek a boo
on the lake a slake of water flaked to salt—continued the slow work of glint–encrust–entomb—alarmed wrens jack-knifed into blue bush—a wedge-tail caught the updraft curve disappeared into bright
we read sand’s stories of a hopping mouse love-in—bronze wings’ forage—the leap from feed to flight—around spinifex the snake’s hunting circle—saw where echidnas quarried for the set menu—found curled among ironstone a sun dried joey skin stuck to bone
on a hill in the shade of native pines where jezebels still semaphored in gold and black our eyes clung to the silver threaded horizon—we stared back through clean light—thought we saw forever."
Originally published by Mulla Mulla Press