Uluru Ululation

ULURU ULULATION



It's walls are red tile
as are its upper domes
in vast floors with slope
where the old grout leaches
out, renting to hardy tussock grasses
even leasing to rock-wrenching trees
thse stunted gumtrees get footholds
on the rock that some say should not
be trod, like kadishi-men frozen

into set poses of limbs where
the mock of a shade of a black and white
pied butcherbird cutely high-perches
to sing as sweetly as gum-flower honey
as if it was innocent of red abattoirs
it makes of the upper rock's skinks
and geckos, sings like a well-fed chorister
in its own hymns for the outdoor blood garden
it fills with its sympathetic red soundtrack.

The tree and tussock and bird-trod stone
slopes off like a temple to a rain umbrella
you would fall from if you pathlessly mistrod
to enter, say, the red surgery of an open brain
or went to the vast bathroom forms of red incline
where the sometime rain will be spent to waterfall
in its rare come when it will and now and then
the butcher-bird will down its chequer-board
of scales its piano-keyed last ululation
like a wicked triumph.

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Photos: Uluru (Ayer's Rock) - 1 (above) Uluru Top Tree with Pied Butcherbird
- 2. (below) Ulura Roof Top vegetation tree