The Ochre Pits

THE OCHRE PITS


Richly hued
Prototype open-cut mines, as if
Templates for more frequent, larger
Venture pits to come.

Lyndhurst, Ellery Creek, the Ochre Pits
Are Indigenous mines of ancient use, taking ore
For use in the mettle of quick Social Matters
Of respected ceremonial colouration.

In sunset tangerine, in quandong
orange, in dried blood reds,
and yellows of the manifold sunrise;
Thee coloured chalks of caution

Out of caution-warned skies
Rendered bodies into the painted robes,
The insignia of ancient office
Ordained with otherness.

The walls of the pits bleed in veins
In stone angular as the paint of many layers
Which makes portraits of a mass of magma
Underneath, a sedimentary deposition

Made for the legal inquest set by the judge
For the resolution of matters by way
Of appreciated matter and the ore that graced
Humans into Awe.