for some reason,
unnown yet
i am sitting here
hot coffee in hand
transfixed by the
memory of a day
lifetimes ago.....

when i took a wrong turn
seeking a small town... and
a cobbler of  soft leather shoes...
instead i found myself
on a bush track, far too
narrow to turn my combi
van around
forced to travel on...
getting further and further
along

until, abruptly the track widened
and the most gorgeous vista
appeared
green grass, sedges and spinfex in waves,
led down to a billabong, eucalypt gums,
ghost and red,
large in size and old in years
dotted the irregular,
ameboic shape

and the water,
so clear, so clear, so clear
reflecting the cloud dusted sky,

to one side the face of a gorge, ochre red rusted
crazed weith black cracks
and green whiskery growths,
on which rock wallabies fed.
unafraid of the big lemoned
wedged combi, who sat
monolithically in their environs.

as  i disembarked,
up from the grass thicket, one thousand and one (i counted) budgerigars alight and took to the wing,
in a swirling mass of
god's whimsical glory.
the sound, a deafening
chirk-chatter and whoosh
as they, in sychron,
wheeled and turned flew over my head and back into  the bush.

needless to say, i never bothered to buy those soft
leather shoes.....