across the gully is another place
a different world with silver roughbarked trees
where stubborn beasts resist you on their knees
while walls and fences leave a proper trace
for those bewildered nature shows her face
in complicated motions that each sees
in the raw colours and the harsh decrees
that come upon us with the morning's grace
so this is recollection of the sight
from high above broad river as the grey
of false dawn marks the ending of the night
but here and now the moment cannot stay
we've paid hard cash for all that we have lost
and got no credit for the hills we've crossed