I watched it pass over
bleak, remote acreage
with a history of cancer
clusters and self-harm
yet whatever it was
that went by, flapping
or locked into the arc
of its glide, there
seemed an abundance
of light and warmth
in its wake, like a scene
in David Attenborough’s
The Life of Birds, where
geese are coming in
over a trapper’s hut
the ground in thaw
patched and broken
like drying wolf skins
the lead bird’s head
riddled with high definition
and because I have
no name for the vision
I’ve been taking
the scene to extreme
unsettling lengths
like unsteadycam footage
of a missile launch
with cutaway shots
of a bad haircut
applauding itself
in black, animated rain
on a crowd of uniforms
it’s all I can do
to scatter the heirloom seed
of memory, and hope
it takes in the wild dirt
between what passed over
and the taming recall
that brings it to mind
to life, or down.
Anthony Lawrence has published 15 books of poems, the most recent being Headwaters (Pitt Street Poetry, 2016). He teaches writing poetry and creative writing at Griffith University, Gold Coast.
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