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Sport 40: 2012

A HISTORY OF SCRIPT III

A HISTORY OF SCRIPT III

where the river gutters over the slabs the blaze
of its bubbles washes into the ochre foam · the sated green
where water stands on the squares of paddy thrusts the rice
into the smoke that wafts across from the bushfire
then come the afternoon storms and scald their skin
on the eucalyptus leaves · the heat claims its quarter
baking the loamy pasture to clumps of laterite
its flames dyeing the iron in the grassroots red
washing the shoreline into the sea · the rain
inscribes the clay-fired shards with its sanskrit
and in the wind’s irregular metres line for line
flares out of the ash: the sibilants
of the earth · arching over the hillside’s palate
the clouds’ tongue licks at the tree-stumps · the violet
of a mango gorges on the sparks · the sky chants
its searing mantra phrase by phrase the peasants’
tillage in thrall to a single maxim: hunger cultivates
a language of its own · to clear space for a first harvest
the jungle must first burn down to the plains
the fire keeping pace with the road and the streambeds
stamping the plough-land into the black · manifest
from the sky rough letters loom like a palm’s lines

                                    tamatavé, 6 . 12 . 97