Coorora

Coorora

For Robert A & Martin H

Driving home to Kangaroo Valley,

Inebriated and feeling unloved,

I turned right into the “Old South Road”

Path of the lost Cow Pastures cattle and of the stumbling magistrate and syphlitic Doctor,  Charles Throsby, a white  hero of sorts.

I too bumbled slowly along through the Gandegarra fog - metre by metre.

In the headlights near a grove of eucalpyts came a creature that I first mistook as a wombat.

Crawling on all fours into the middle of the road, it suddenly stood up full length.

Glaring defiantly its head red eyes, ears alert, standing tall, and then walking like a man, it strode off into the night.

There is a giant shark in the deepest waters of Arnhem Bay and a giant turtle near Wirriku.

Dinosaur dogs patrol the land from Mata Mata to Larthaŋaŋur and beyond.

Another lives at Djiliwirri.

‘These are not dream time stories’.

They are with us now.

Showing themselves like three wombats dancing a circular jig on the road in your dimmed headlights.

In ‘23 for Christ’s sake vote yes,  end the war and our unerring ignorance and profanity.

Listen.