Summertime

The bush has ceased its muttering, as the air tightens 

like a string. The birds have flown. The koalas are higher 

in the trees, hugging the trunks. The roos are heading 

for the river. You are filling a hatchback with what they 

say are essentials, before being carried to a new reality. 

Every snap underfoot feels as if it were ready to ignite. 

The only way to continue is to shut off the attachment 

to things. Left behind, a kitchen of brands and plastic

wrap, a still-running TV, cupboard doors flung open 

with the abandon of a burglar. All the driveways

in the main town are bare. The cars are moving 

in the same direction. You keep driving south, discarding 

as you go, until all that will be left is you and the thought

of how you came into this world. You are accompanied 

yet you’re alone. You are terrified yet move like the wind. 

Again, your plan has dropped for another you do not 

understand. You are a wallaby with pricked up ears. 

You are the fairywren deep in the tree hollow. 

You are now at the mercy of all you tried to control – 

the sun, the wind, your body, the heat, your heart. 

There will be a time, very soon, when the animal 

panic will leave your eyes and you will stop 

calling out his name. As the sky turns brown 

and the earth erupts into the colour of the sun, 

you will face what you must; what you couldn’t before – 

the ephemeral home, the watershed, your day of rescue.