As the day dusks, the bald foothills flare

with purple-orange light. The moon hangs low

above the mountains, and between them mauve

smoke pulls daylight’s flesh from night’s spine.
The plains are bare except for sedge and torqued

gums. Cockatoos screech, those punks of the bush,

demanding more of the light. Between what was

and what will come, a liminal dreamscape, 
no, a night terror. The Broken River’s dammed

belly bulges at Lake Nillahcootie, digesting

the skeletons of flood-drowned red gums. Earth

still carries all that has been cleared away.
The sun plunges and is gone. The cool breath

of night descends and the land shivers.