We’d travelled more than a hundred miles
From the nearest outback town,
The sun was roasting the plains out there
And the heat was getting us down,
We’d left all the eucalypts behind
And there wasn’t a patch of green,
Only a scrubby saltbush there
Where the natives used to dream.
We halted just as the sun went down
And Miranda let out a sigh,
‘Have ever you seen such stars as these?’
And pointed up at the sky,
The heavens shone with a mighty glow
From the stars that glittered, proud,
Each was lighting the earth below
From the inky black of its shroud.
But underneath us the ground was hot
And the track it lay, bone dry,
There’d not been even a single drop
Of rain, since the last July,
We huddled up in the four wheel drive
As the air began to chill,
I pulled a blanket across our knees
And we slept for a little while.
Miranda had some Arunta blood
From her great-grandmother’s side,
She’d learned of some of their culture, and
She had the Arunta pride,
We woke to a distant whirring sound
And Miranda sat up straight,
And murmured, ‘That’s a Tjurunga
Trying to open heaven’s gate.’
‘The white men call it a Bull Roarer,’
She said, with a hint of fear,
‘And I’m forbidden to hear it, for
It’s not for a woman’s ear.
They’ll **** me if they should find me here
For breaking their sacred law,’
She slid down over her seat, and sat
Her head down, close to the floor.
I climbed on out of the cab, and stood
Surveying the dark surround,
The whirring seemed to be closer now,
And the pitch went up and down,
An icy chill ran along my spine
As I saw a movement there,
Something slithering over the ground
Not far from where we were.
I froze in shock, and I held my breath
When I saw a pair of eyes,
Both the colour of rubies, and
Of quite enormous size,
And then I saw the head of the snake
As it ploughed a furrow, deep,
Its body the colours of rainbows, then
Miranda took a peep.
She said, ‘It’s the Rainbow Serpent,’
As the whirring sound went on,
Covered her ears and shut her eyes
And said, ‘It’ll soon be gone.’
I climbed back into the cab and locked
The door, and lay down flat,
Trembled in fear, I’d never seen
A snake as big as that.
The dawn was gradually breaking as
I took a look outside,
And there, where the ground had been quite flat
Was a creek, ten metres wide,
And water, straight from the Queensland rains
Was pouring over the land,
Sluicing along the new creek bed
Where before, there was only sand.
I’d never believed in the Dreamtime
Or the tales that the natives tell,
But somewhere the Rainbow Serpent roams
With eyes from heaven or hell,
We turned the nose of the jeep around,
Drove back to the town once more,
I’ll never return to the desert, where
You can hear the Bull Roarer’s roar!
David Lewis Paget