They help us in the calling
Of a Colombus flower
The dirt off the shoe
Of a kangaroo
And the bell rings in the old
Church tower
Each of these are mercies see
When it comes to addressing the bones
The dead rise up in the swamp
In the swamp
And there they try to atone
For to kill the thing you love is worse
A worse sin
Than Heaven above knows
To tap the shoulder of the devil of love
To confuse him with being alone
To change your clothes in a waterfall
To fly and see the whole of the rainbow
Only complete when you've left the earth
A thousand feet below
Is this what the angels see papa?
When they look down from their clouds
Do they see rainbows and rings of colours?
Do they have rain in their eyes?
Does it rain where they are?
Is the mist of the stars
Too much too much to know
Is it a bird or a country, Turkey
Is Van Diemen's land a constellation of stars
Look let me show you how to sit on the bed
How to Span it with an arched back
How to raise your spine and look at the stars
Wheel above
As the bed turns like a carousel
And eternity spins high above us
Let us look at the crown of stars
Look are they another country?
Let us look at the man in the attic
Who was just looking for birds
As a buzzard swoops down onto the carcass
You say look it was a turkey not a country
In the end
But how can you tell in this land
Of cow pats
And early rats
Who hunt near dawn
How can you tell who is telling the truth?
And why did you speak to the stranger like that?
My mother says to me
Because he was hiding in the attic
Because he likes to hide in the reeds
And he stalks birds and creeps up on them
And captures their souls secretly in his photographs
When they don't know it
He steals their beauty, that was only meant for nature
And the morning to see
And it is only the vague dread they feel
Of being watched, by these silent men
Who wait like snakes in the grass
He wore a hat that was too small for his head
Like a cap on a battery
A bald battery with a broad jaw
Like Buffalo Bill
She said
And I told him that
And next time I looked he had fled
Or else there were vague shufflings
But I could not see him
Hidden in the reeds
Of the attic
A secret
And so I went out into the wide world
To look for him,
Like my mother and father once said
Look for yourself
Find yourself
But I kept needing the toilet
And so I ran back up to the attic
Where my secret fears were kept
In the house of tears
And I met the man who was running there
Too
He said I was born to sit for hours on the toilet
Waiting, I bring a book
So you go first
And then I tried the different wooden doors like beach huts
But some were occupied
Until one was vacant
But a lady came there first
So I gave it to her
And nothing was free
then
Except the country and the turkey
