It’s that time when day meets night
‘Dusk’ is too washed-out a word
For this living time when nerves
Sing and reach to the in-between
And eye-muscles writhe to readjust,
Give substance to shadow.
Nothing to fear but fear itself
And the odd croc.
The boat is small for five adults and three kids
Rods, hooks stowed, bow as sides;
About twenty prey lie low in the scuppers
And drown, gills burning in this too-rich water
That they cannot drink, that seems not there.
We skim the surface though heavy loaded -
Or I do: loaded to the gunnels with theory,
White man’s dry burden
With little useful or translatable to skill,
My fresh catfish-wound bloody
Wrapped in pandanus’ innermost strand
That Eddy burned with his lighter.
This is croc country. And Eddy’s.
Where I barely float Eddy swims,
Crocs or no bloody crocs,
Paunch breasting waves in life’s wash.
Life turns two-tone as dark falls.
Near, trees finger blackness with grey leaves
Reach overhead and frame stars.
Beneath and around white marks our progress
As motor shoves, main strength without sympathy
Or careful fitting of means to circumstance -
Like a chook, noisy but useful.
So we chug the tunnel, bows adip
As Eddy’s paunch points the way
And he gesticulates directions
In the growing dark.
Day refuses to fade, fights back, as flash! and
Lightning marks clouds’ outline,
Last storm before the dry.
Sudden purple squats green edged
Distant but with sullen intent
And grinds sky’s mangle.
A barra squeals its last.
To be lit on one’s way
By a hundred million tonnes of air-bound water
Thumping itself for right of way
Blundering through the firmament
Source and type of deities and banshees
Clumping light in its longing
To get back to its relations around us
To do this in a boat loaded with food for us
And us potential food for the gingas
If the storm hits
Throws light on all of mind’s creations
Of ourself as size or quantity.
And on the nature of ripples.
May 22 1999.
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