By noon the trees are peeling paperbark,
red ochre scars and pink new skin exposed;
oil, oozed from pores, hangs listless in the air,
as sweating eucalypts withstand the sun
as best they can. Beneath their scanty shade,
a herd of kine lies still, their roan and brown
a speckled camouflage in flaxen grass
that, brittle, waits a spark to animate
this sultry lassitude of summer heat,
whose haze of blue asphyxiates the bush,
where parrots gag for breath, and small birds shrink
into the shadowed wattle undergrowth.

Continue reading at Antony Fawcus, Poet