Perendale princess 

(after Bernadette Hall)
she grows plump as a lava flow

so earthed in her luscious volcanics

the rhyolite rose-pink        like raw flesh
and boundless      as snowdrifts     or new lambs

preciously fattening          bred for fecundity

holding dear the important qualities
of loyal mothering and rot-resistant feet

she is a rounded pebble       spilling down the gully

or an unscrolled fern       clinging to the creek’s burst banks 
our lady of the woolshed      in gumboots and lace

part roughshod        part dainty      the perendale princess

strokes the dead hare and      releases him
to the furrowed earth       in a place she can no longer be

a child forever      ageless baby       tiny as a lamb’s ribcage       picked clean

or generous like a mountain       maternal maiden
a reclining body         of russet tussocked hummocks and hollows

cradling bellbird and silvereye      welcome earth latticed by rabbits

but she cannot go on           surrendering to the sky     
her snarling heart        caught in the barbed wire

like a skein of wool         her freezing fingers

bitter with blood         and pricked by coarse horsehair          
her forehead adorned or disgraced by an icy diadem of gorse

her pockets rattling     with spent plastic

bullet casings                  in red    yellow     morbid gold