An owl winks in the shadow
A lizard lifts on tiptoe
breathing hard.
A robot in a suit peddles a mineral-rich delusion called “Western Australia”.
The head-heavy, power-hungry Government shuffles papers
Does it speak for the green of the leaf?
Does it speak for the soil?
In the city of Perth the front line expands
A bulldozer side-slips over the skinned-up bodies of still-live banksia trees.
In the pay of a man
From town.
Woylie, honey possum and chuditch are gone.
Super-stores and brick and tile shining hard in the sun.
Now is the time for solidarity
Between four-legged, two-legged people.
Flying people.
The paper-shufflers lose their mandate
The people turn towards the ancient land of the Bibbulman.
An owl winks in the shadow
A lizard lifts on tiptoe
breathing hard.
(My re-edit of lines from Gary Snyder’s poems ‘Mother Earth’ and ‘Front Lines’, 1969)