Out across The Lowlands,

drifting with the coal dust

                              to find

home footing.
Iron girder

railway bridge,

Footscray

high upon the lava ridge.
We reach a tidal canal:

remnant waters ephemeral,

born of floodplains

salt lagoons.

Blue rich.
Then two rivers

lined with tanks,

bluestone beaching

mouth to bank –

their confluence:

deep and wide.
We watch container ships

heavy

hypnotic

glide

(filled with sugar

built on bone mills)

beneath the western gate

that joins

silt to stone.

Brutal snake

in wake

of fertiliser sheds

gabled tight,

flaking pyrite,

furnace rooflines,

(arsenic cinders

hidden infill).

And there is the past flowing again –

saltwater

pushes and pulls

at a manmade bend.
Always there.

Past always there
signals are dark,

the river: a seam,

lights on the ridge are now hidden by

glass and steel.
But I can feel

silt and clay

meeting the bay,

depositing washing

layers.
This will soon be a layer.

I will soon be a layer.
A layer

A layer

A layer