Through Paradise, running on empty

A poem by Anne Morgan
Motoring out of Mole Creek in a tickertape of autumn leaves,
vermilion, gold, carmine, the only servo’s shut at noon on Saturdays
  and the next bowser’s the other side of Paradise,
crossing the Union bridge,
  best place to see a platypus on the Mersey River,
passing a platoon of E. globulus,
  khaki-skirts and waxed blue petticoats,
  their sameness defies the natural disorder ….
a sudden shock of mountain has been sliced away to a limekiln,
  a sawmill’s grinding logs to dusty ones,
sun slides off the mountainous giants, Roland and Claude,
a log truck rumbles upwards, I strain behind it,
  stuck between gears, not daring to pass on these windings.

Barbed-wire rectangles yield to high-treed shadows.
  A bandicoot lies, brain-mashed on bitumen,
Forestry signs are welcoming visitors,
  declaring the Gog Range to be a ‘working forest’,
working like a woman gagged, chained,
     shaved, ploughed, burnt and seeded.

On my tank-filled return, the bandicoot’s leg
  has been raised in a rigor mortis salute
   to the passing of wing, feather and claw
   and the riotous weavings of soil, cloud, wood and leaf,
and I’m back to Mole Creek in a deciduous blaze,
  having fed the air with hydrocarbons
   and watched the rape of Paradise.

©

Peter Macrow,
Tasmanian Times Poetry Editor.
Tasmanian poets or those with a Tasmanian link are invited to send up to 5 poems which have not appeared previously in print or electronic media to:
peter.macrow@gmail.com

For the complete collection, click here: Poetry