Inside Ayers Rock is lit <br />with paired fluorescent lights <br />on steel pillars supporting the ceiling <br />of haze-blue marquee cloth <br />high above the non-slip pavers. <br />Curving around the cafeteria <br />throughout vast inner space <br />is a Milky way of plastic chairs <br />in foursomes around tables <br />all the way to the truck drivers' enclave. <br />Dusted coolabah trees grow to the ceiling, <br />TVs talk in gassy colours, and <br />round the walls are Outback shop fronts: <br />the Beehive Bookshop for brochures, <br />Casual Clobber, the bottled Country Kitchen <br />and the sheet-iron Dreamtime Experience <br />that is turned off at night. <br />A high bank of medal-ribbony <br />lolly jars preside over <br />island counters like opened crates, <br />one labelled White Mugs, and covered with them. <br />A two-dimensional policeman <br />discourages shoplifting of gifts <br />and near the entrance, where you pay <br />for fuel, there stands a tribal man <br />in rib-paint and pubic tassel. <br />It is all gentle and kind. <br />In beyond the children's playworld <br />there are fossils, like crumpled <br />old drawings of creatures in rock.<br /><br />Les Murray<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/inside-ayers-rock/
