Pandanus

PANDANUS

Usually perched oasis-like on
the very brink, taking their big drink,
edging along a long bar of open water

Pandanus spiralis, on elbows, its palms
of long leaves lean up off slouching stalks
in twisted waves of air-swimming hands

unwashed, untidy, shambolic as any bushie
they lounge across all the best places
sticking the place up with gun-spines

that hide the water's edge, that cover
up the small paths down, the wallaby tracks
or pirate haven carnivore-eyed drinking places

beside the lagoon, billabong, water-hole
where crocodiles might be if water-roads
channel them in, like palm-skin relatives

of the ancient orders of life, reptile
and palm, old allies of the primordial
times now relic under jet-trailed skies

where pineapple-like clusters of pandan fruit
attract flying foxes, those night-fruit bats
that drug-sniff them out orange-red and ripe.