Currawong

Dirt roads give way to hotels and bars;
parents jump-starting their stalled youth
notch up another rainforest, head out to the reef.
Hired boat smashes through mangroves,
alarming egrets as the inlet narrows,
outboard motor stuck in mud up crocodile creek
                                                  
Currawong lingers in a ghost-white gum tree.
One family’s memories, clouded with loss;
canoeing to the island, dolphins in the lake.
Pelicans wait for the gutting of the catch.
 
“That’s the Southern Cross, mate,”
the bloke heading home
from a family reunion in Skegness
(“Never again, mate”) tells me with pride.
He shakes his head (I don’t like to ask)
as we fly over desert, just before sunrise.