Survival.(Poem)

 
SURVIVAL 
 
   Of course it was the bones that brought the bush rat 
   and the bush rat the snake. 
 
   At first glance everything outside was green-- 
   the brush that we kept cropped close by the house 
   the grey gums and the frangipani 
   and the cristagalli tree that carded red blossoms. 
   But then the king parrot had his flash of red too 
   above his bill 
   and his cry was red. 
   We were level with the tops of the lower trees 
   and sometimes he seemed a hand's breadth away. 
   When he was still 
   with his head turned away 
   he was indistinguishable from the leathery leaves. 
 
   Even the river was green 
   between bouts of rain. 
   "I want to come first in your life" he had said 
   and I remember stating 
   frozen 
   at the slow-moving plateau between the banks 
   between the high sandstone buffs on either side. 
 
   I remember too the sound of the rain on the tin roof. 
   Most times that same tin made us fry in January, 
   ...