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A daub of wattle and a flare of wild hops

are scattered among rocks, rippled up from an ancient sea-bed

and laid bare by the sighing wind.

The only sounds I hear are the silent whispers of time 

folded into the layered hills.

Sheoak, sugar gum and native pine

held and holding, claw into the thin soil

beside the torn rubble of a fresh scree

that breaks free and lays its red scar open to the clouding sky,

preparing its certain slough

into the harsh salt pan spanning the opposite horizon.

In a hidden gorge, rocks, 

squared and cleft by the axe of some demi-god who,

reeking with sweat and rut strode these mountains before time,

tower and teeter like the chimneys

of an abandoned and long-forgot mine

from which human clay was dug and fired.

This old, old land gives birth every Spring

to a tender and ephemeral beauty

that forever forgives its unrelenting harshness.

© Neil Quintrell 1995