In the centre of the outback where the kangaroos do hop <br />where the sun has burnt the earth and where no farmer grows a crop, <br />there is hope for storms and lightning and the promise of good rain <br />but the season has just left us and the longing was in vain. <br />So relentless in its logic is the heat that burns our skin <br />all we carry is a rifle and a bottle of good gin. <br />Let us rest there by the gully, next to skeletons bleached white <br />dream of swags left at the campsite, sleep in spinifex tonight. <br /> <br />When the day came early, calling for another round of pain <br />fissured tongues and peeling faces and the smell of cooking brain <br />there appeared from way down yonder a lethargic desert hare <br />and we danced and hugged and tasted this surprise, a tasty fare <br />but it turned into a vision which flew off into the sky <br />and we sensed the truth at once, it was a given we should die. <br /> <br />Came the fellow with a spear and a machete, thin and black <br />raised his weapon in a gesture unmistakenly. Attack! <br />So we fell into a bundle, with no fluid in our blood <br />as the fellow poured some water onto bulldust, making mud. <br />Soon the tribe had all assembled, black and white with perfect teeth <br />and they stuffed some leaves and blankets and some spinifex beneath. <br />In a week we did recover, eating predigested food <br />chewed by grandmas with moustaches who were sitting there subdued. <br />They escorted us for miles until we reached the proper trail <br />and a boy the size of rabbits said 'the white man always fail.'<br /><br />Herbert Nehrlich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/outback-3/
