After the whey-faced anonymity <br />Of river-gums and scribbly-gums and bush, <br />After the rubbing and the hit of brush, <br />You come to the South Country <br />As if the argument of trees were done, <br />The doubts and quarrelling, the plots and pains, <br />All ended by these clear and gliding planes <br />Like an abrupt solution. <br /> <br />And over the flat earth of empty farms <br />The monstrous continent of air floats back <br />Coloured with rotting sunlight and the black, <br />Bruised flesh of thunderstorms: <br /> <br />Air arched, enormous, pounding the bony ridge, <br />Ditches and hutches, with a drench of light, <br />So huge, from such infinities of height, <br />You walk on the sky's beach <br /> <br />While even the dwindled hills are small and bare, <br />As if, rebellious, buried, pitiful, <br />Something below pushed up a knob of skull, <br />Feeling its way to air. <br /> <br /> <br /><br /><br />Kenneth Slessor<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/south-country/
