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In the centre of the outback where the kangaroos do hop
where the sun has burnt the earth and where no farmer grows a crop,
there is hope for storms and lightning and the promise of good rain
but the season has just left us and the longing was in vain.
So relentless in its logic is the heat that burns our skin
all we carry is a rifle and a bottle of good gin.
Let us rest there by the gully, next to skeletons bleached white
dream of swags left at the campsite, sleep in spinifex tonight.
When the day came early, calling for another round of pain
fissured tongues and peeling faces and the smell of cooking brain
there appeared from way down yonder a lethargic desert hare
and we danced and hugged and tasted this surprise, a tasty fare
but it turned into a vision which flew off into the sky
and we sensed the truth at once, it was a given we should die.
Came the fellow with a spear and a machete, thin and black
raised his weapon in a gesture unmistakenly. Attack!
So we fell into a bundle, with no fluid in our blood
as the fellow poured some water onto bulldust, making mud.
Soon the tribe had all assembled, black and white with perfect teeth
and they stuffed some leaves and blankets and some spinifex beneath.
In a week we did recover, eating predigested food
chewed by grandmas with moustaches who were sitting there subdued.
They escorted us for miles until we reached the proper trail
and a boy the size of rabbits said 'the white man always fail.'
Herbert Nehrlich
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