Finke River, Hermannsburg, 1988
The celebration is on the coast.
Here I stand
in the middle of a river bed
forty million years deep.
This land that is owned
and not owned
in ten minutes
owns me.
The land doesn’t need me
but the river’s hands
hold my feet.
The heart of the land is red.
The mouth of the land opens.
*Ross Hattaway is from New Zealand and lives in Dublin. Seven Towers published his first book, The Gentle Art of Rotting.
Finke River was previously published in The Gentle Art of Rotting (Seven Towers, Dublin, 2006) in Lithuanian, in Poezijos Pavasaris, the almanac of the 2008 Poetry Spring Festival.
