A Country Childhood - Jo Gardiner.

[Lawrence Robinson]

A Country Childhood

Near old Dunkeld bluestones in the faulted Grampions
 where corellas dipped and looped, you stood shoulder
high in scratchy heather and picked blue tinsel lilies,

golden moth orchids and green correas, parrot peas-
 wildflowers with crimped petals studding the ground
in a tumble of splintered stars. But remember, too,

the sweetish stink of flesh gone bad, how wind ruined
 silver banksia, crows gulped steaming guts torn from
inside a rabbit's belly and spilled from beaks as they flew

off, trailing black crinoline. And how a solemn faced
 child stood in dusky purple leaves below a yellow
wreathe of wattle, a gun held slackly along one arm.

This evening, as you watch the scarlet maple
 bleed out on the lawn, you count them: the time
you fought off dogs hellbent on ripping crimson

chasms in the fox's cloud-soft throat; and returned
 a shallow-mouthed trout from a hook into the brown
liquid soul that was its river; and scared wild ducks

off the lake before the gunmen came, laughter inside
 their slaughter leaking into dawn; and freed a furry
huntsman, long legs unfurled inside a window screen;

and all the bees; and the bogong moth - velvet as cob-
 webs on lips - sifted from water for summer's breath
to dry drenched wings; and countless birds retrieved

from the concussion of windows masquerading as open
 sky; and later, the suicides poised for flight into the blue
you talked back from the edge; and the joey you scooped

from her still-warm mother - her raspy tongue searching
 for touch of kin tasted only your salty skin. She slept
inside a hessian pouch strung from the Aga, the warm

centre of your home, whiplashed by winds funnelled in
 from a southern sea  - a skirling coronach for every
creature laid to waste, or left ruined by rifle fire -

like the bird that dropped down dead, when, aged ten,
 you raised the .22, steadied your sights on that knot
of feather and little bones, and cleanly took the shot.

	- Jo Gardiner.