Anzac day

Standing on Splendour Rock ,

encircled by the Wild Dog Mountains                                                    

we are shot at by the wind                                                                     

and flecked with rain and sun

Now Anzac Day runs down

through all the trees

to the bend in the Cox

And there are birds

in all the space of the air

and in place of bugles

sounding the "last post"                                                                      

there are currawong calls –

wild and winsome flowers of sound

that rise and bloom and fall

Out over far Kanangra

Light swells and flashes                                                                        

amongst smoky clouds

and closer where sunlight

bursts on one great spur ahead

we image the spirit moving

on the brightness

the curving , shaping spirit

that transforms

its myriad

trembling forms

to blue green

lovelines

Other walkers stood

on Splendour Rock and

before the bugles ordered them

to war.

Now we stand where they stood

and where they often must

have longed to go

 

the Wild Dogs ringed around us

and the Cox's down below

 

by Tom Haylar 1999