not to mention harpur his prophetic dream of lawson exhuming

jabberwockies

stuffed and exhibited in life-like dioramas

and Henry Kendall letting the belled birds free

		translating flight into words of white

with a nun, every Thursday evening

as she guts the fish for the next day’s chowder

And lotus eater by day under the harsh light of afternoon.

		He recalls Macquarie, building towns like tight sonnets

where feeling ran highest.

down by the yellow stones of the playground

where lesbia harford sang her playful songs

sic homini homini homini; homo homini lupus contest

, one of them. Another was “Rain Chowder”. Another “Bun”.

The Canon thought otherwise.

Baxter is dead. Wylie, can you hear the Sound?

and for reason the number in five-fold interest discovers meaning

will this discovery upset the natural order?

give rise to a ministry given over to dead poets and dying 	philosophy?

or simply dust off the secrets scrawled on the inside of the

     carapace, glyphed by mystics?

Outwit linguistic nitwits choking on Dizzee Rascal tongue-fits?

in the seventh tier an angel flicked the last ‘p’ from my forehead

maleleuca, grevillea, bell-bird, kook-a

senators cheaper n swings

n rouseabouts

n shearers in blue n possums in the rafters n ducks on the pond

foxfire dandleweeds wulfing the backyard thistletesters backdusters

             knack-thrist camseed blackburned down

others like doleful Brennan and the old John Shaw Neilson –

             he of that changeling light in the orange tree

… listening

and meditating; one eye focused on the rain

falling from a cloudless sky onto a lake north of wentworth,

     where the emu are hunted by ghosts of travellers past

and the schools have no more history books

just interactive history wars

Oh! Where are the voices? Where are them we can bow down to?

     Where the silver tongues weaving a thatch for us to lie under,

     sheltered from the heaven’s cruel washing.