Bora Ring

The song is gone; the dance

is secret with the dancers in the earth,

the ritual useless, and the tribal story

lost in an alien tale.

Only the grass stands up

to mark the dancing-ring; the apple-gums

posture and mime a past corroboree,

murmur a broken chant.

The hunter is gone; the spear

is splintered underground; the painted bodies

a dream the world breathed sleeping and forgot.

The nomad feet are still.

Only the rider's heart

halts at a sightless shadow, an unsaid word

that fastens in the blood of the ancient curse,

the fear as old as Cain.