1965
14 July 2025
published in The Northern Churinga volume LIII–1965
original title ‘poem’
radically rewritten 60 years later

squint

spark and go
and dare be born
dry mulga
kindling
for an education of lightning

eat and
grow fat
flames could be honest enough
to rise like the sun
and just as hard

to bear
not so the moon
not so the stones
not so a love that lasts