Salt Airs

SALT AIR


A salt-lake is a silence.
Something is about salt
that falls away to distance
as if the need for sound
is washed and bathed away.

Birds whisper,
wild dogs creep
and stare like stars
while emus run on
great feathery footsteps.

Lake Eyre the sky
is sun risen to fill
up with silent light
and go to set empty
without fanfare.

Night settles
in a vessel of
crystalline earth
with no falling
dance of dread.

Air colours
are saline-snow
and salt shimmerings
with reflections
of a far-out sky.

* * *

- Lake Eyre, June 1995