"Athens, Georgia, 89 Degrees" by Niki Tulk
When it rains,
and wet heat presses iron from the soil,
the earth runs red.
I think of the desert;
dry, red heart of my country,
creased with tumbleweed
tracks, cradling
kangaroo prints.
Animal dreaming
has clawed echoes
into the dust. In
Lake Mungo, they found
a man
30,000 moons distant,
and still the ochre stained his bones.
When the Georgia rain
crushes, then melts
sidewalk rims, rusts
my immigrant paths, I swim
brown mountain rivers
in my country--
Howqua, Goulbourn, Ovens,
bird-thronged high country waters--
cold and joyous.
Translucent folds and liquid furrows
sliding across, around stones
embed my weary feet in their raw current;
thin sun tinges the crisp curls of ferns, held in spoor-rich air.
Those bleached ghost-men, other-world travelers
cut those brown-skinned stewards
back like bracken--
you cut them back like bracken--
my pale skin accuses, shining
from the riverbed.
And you too, and you too,
mourns the Boobook owl,
as here the Whip-poor-will
remembers the shame
of Georgia.
When it rains
and the earth
runs red, I
do not want to remember
the blood soaking deep
the clay of my country:
graves cradled
under the green ferns.
I do not want to think
(when the earth runs red)
of the poisoned wells,
cliffs to which the first ones were pursued
until they tipped,
cracked open; brown
jars splintered, their stories
draining into the
dank gullies.
My story is buried, too,
in loam amongst the roots
of the Stringybark--
when it rains, I surface;
an echo, an ochre stain.
and wet heat presses iron from the soil,
the earth runs red.
I think of the desert;
dry, red heart of my country,
creased with tumbleweed
tracks, cradling
kangaroo prints.
Animal dreaming
has clawed echoes
into the dust. In
Lake Mungo, they found
a man
30,000 moons distant,
and still the ochre stained his bones.
When the Georgia rain
crushes, then melts
sidewalk rims, rusts
my immigrant paths, I swim
brown mountain rivers
in my country--
Howqua, Goulbourn, Ovens,
bird-thronged high country waters--
cold and joyous.
Translucent folds and liquid furrows
sliding across, around stones
embed my weary feet in their raw current;
thin sun tinges the crisp curls of ferns, held in spoor-rich air.
Those bleached ghost-men, other-world travelers
cut those brown-skinned stewards
back like bracken--
you cut them back like bracken--
my pale skin accuses, shining
from the riverbed.
And you too, and you too,
mourns the Boobook owl,
as here the Whip-poor-will
remembers the shame
of Georgia.
When it rains
and the earth
runs red, I
do not want to remember
the blood soaking deep
the clay of my country:
graves cradled
under the green ferns.
I do not want to think
(when the earth runs red)
of the poisoned wells,
cliffs to which the first ones were pursued
until they tipped,
cracked open; brown
jars splintered, their stories
draining into the
dank gullies.
My story is buried, too,
in loam amongst the roots
of the Stringybark--
when it rains, I surface;
an echo, an ochre stain.
