I float on my back
Down the river
Looking up through the gorge
Rain forest
And the sky
Pouring beauty
Down
Into me
Buoyant
Drifting
The tribal man
Sings me through
Native landscapes
Proud

Rats scurry through my dreams
And my luggage
I sleep
In their house
In the banyan tree
The volcano sunrise
Wakes me with its rumbling
Sprinkling me with black dust
Volcanic plains
Stretch into an ebony desert

I am the other here
white woman
in a black mans world
Ni Vanuatu
Independence Day
celebrating liberation
from my colonial past
taking back control
destiny
red, yellow, black, green
the colours of pride
the strength of the earth
that nourishes freedom

I clean
I cook
I ****
Practicing
Domestic bliss

There's money to be made
from love
Give me a rose
wine me and dine me
I will be your valentine
There's money to be made
from love
Slip me a hundred
I will be yours
skin on skin
whisper sweet nothings
in your ear
desperate for worship
There's money to be made
from the fantasy
of what you think love is
A commodity
to trade
the right price
at the right time
There's money to be made
from love
I'll take it from you
and walk away
leaving you
and the fable in your head
of what love is

I remembered myself
As I am now
As I was then
Living this moment
again and again
Memories of futures past
Imprinting repetition
Over and over
Until the lessons
Are learned
And I can free myself
From the mill I tread
When you and I
Did not dance in circles
Stepping on each other's toes
Repeating the reasons
We argued
Revisiting the pasts
That determined our futures
That we know will unfold
As if we have lived them
Before
The cycle of
Life, birth, death
The same existence
In different disguises
We have already seen
Deja vu, deja entendu, Presque vu

It was oppressive that day
the heat
vegetation withering in its gaze
Possums dropped from trees
Roads melted in the haze
Sweat hugging their skin
they recede into the cool dark
oblivious to the sleeping slayer
waiting to be awoken
A single spark
A discarded cigarette
The roaring wind
a high speed train
driving heat from the depths of hell before it
Ignition
No slow burner
a raging temper
Calamity erupts
Ash eclipse of the sun
Fighters
no strangers to danger
retreat to safer ground
Fire ***** oxygen from air
feeding the inferno
Rips tree trunks from earth
Flames
melt paint from doors
flesh from bones
The fronts pass
the fire recedes
A hush falls on the highlands
in the aftermath
the land a stranger to the observer
Nature stripped to a skeleton
charred bricks, melted glass
The detritus a precursor to recovery
wild flowers nursed by the light kiss of rain