Wonderful Land Poem by Phillip Ellis

Eucalypts against a blue
so sharp and deep, no eyes
could ever match the hue that burns
within my blood,

this land of drought
and tinder-dry grasses, sheep
wool on bones, hanging
listlessly within the roiling heat,

the choir of bellbirds
drowning all within their sound,
the magpies
carolling ceaselessly in fog,

the further ranges drowning
in blue haze, escarpment
sharp against the sky with the wink
of white car windows descending,

the gibber, uncompromised
by haze, the distance sharp
and flat in its circuit against
the birth of sky,

the National Park turned and thinned
with soot and charred tree trunks,
charcoal haunted by the ghost
of fire and of smoke,

wildflowers of white and blue and yellow,
the native bees
and the grevilleas,
the tree ferns over a hundred feet tall,

the temperate rainforest,
the mists thundering from waterfalls,
the riverlet and the pass,
the cold creeks and snakes on a track,

the rain-grey wood of collapsing farmhouses,
images of memories,
the rust-red gate sagging under growing weight
for the last time,

how I am borne here
on the compass points, the rose
centering me to love
this wonderful land.