by LYNDAL TURNER
The slow boil of summer dusk, a blood red sky
darkens and drains to black behind the precise silhouette of trees
and the outline of hay; rolled, wrapped and stacked
along the fenceline. In the distance, low and deeper
than the discord of crickets, tractors are calling it a night.
In the morning, when the sun is high, the men will return
with piece and thermos and esky. They will slice
tractor circles in the dry paddocks for hours while heat
distorts the air, cropping a spread of yellow grass
to stubble and dust. They will roll their sleeves
over perennial leather skin, pull their hats low, say
nothing all day beyond a grunt, an orright. Nothing
when they break for lunch, nothing in the afternoon
when the signal goes out it’s time to milk the cows,
returning again and again until the job is done.