homesick in exile
taken south under sail
a song thrush lilts
through fluting rolling trills...
across the lane Irish reels
a black cat’s hiss
in this overgrown yard –
blooms purple
berries glossy and dark
nightshade looking deadly
among Jersey cows
outside a deer farm’s tall fence
one Sambar doe...
hands tremble sharing papers
with migration officials
rufous fox
not curbed by hen-house wire
or baying hounds
its coat too red this morning
cunning no match for a car
eucalypts clear-felled
for potatoes and sheep –
kangaroos long gone
from this meadow at dusk
where first harvesters dug yams
Rodney Williams