Magpies
The poet admires the black-and-white magpies, strutting and singing like gentlemen but also becoming vicious when it was time to eat.
Metho Drinker
A man on drugs suffers immeasurably. He burns and quivers under eyes and bright light, and seeks solace in Nothing. He compares the drug to a burning woman devouring him. His goal is death, but the drug still makes him wary.
Legend
The blacksmith’s boy and his dog venture out into the wilderness and encounter numerous obstacles, but he boasts that he can surmount all of them. After the rain a rainbow lights up the sky and he catches it and hangs it on his shoulder. The creatures of nature marvel at what he has done.
The Old Prison
The poet ruminates on the old ruins of a prison, now laid bare to the elements. She thinks of the prisoners who were once here, their cries like that of the wind that now rushes through the roofless structure.
South of My Days
The poet writes of the Australian landscape, stark and cold and hungry.
There is a cottage in the tableland where old Dan lives. Dan tells story after story of his adventures as a drover, some true and some perhaps not true. At the end of the poem, she tells the old man to wake up since no one is listening anymore, but the stories remain.
Five Senses
The narrator reflects on how her five senses work together to create rhythm and design. They overwhelm her and it feels like what they create grows beyond what she can comprehend.
Request to a Year
The narrator asks of the Year to be like her great-great-grandmother, who had many children and was a painter. Her most notable work consisted of a scene she hastily sketched: her son got stuck on an ice floe and almost plummeted down a waterfall before her daughter saved him. The old woman could do nothing but sketch, and the narrator admires her firmness.
