Hawkesbury Campground Poem

 

At the last pristine river in New South Wales

Alicia Keys tells you through a tinny phone you’re in New York

 

but the cicadas know better, and they lay

their oscillating sheet of tone across the whole affair.

 

The drive here’s a motherfucker – 60, 80, 100 zones

go-kart tracks, a cabbage farm, something large

 

with gates that read ‘Somerset’, and a solitary flouro-green

‘No gas’ sign on a power pole that reminds you to ‘keep our rivers clean’.

 

The undergrowth begins its slow assault

as the roads switch from asphalt to dirt and back again.

 

You arrive in a clearing with the dusk and put your tent up

next to struggling families and those with simple needs.

 

Later, you can watch sheet lightning filter through a membrane

of high cloud. But the whole thing –  You, your tent, the fire,

 

the cicadas and Alicia, are being spied on through the bushes

by The Last Pristine River in New South Wales.

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