A poem called "Journey into the Primal Heartland"

A Journey into the Primal Heartland

The blue sky spread out over the land
Like a great sparkling lake,
And the sun heated everything in a colossal furnace –
Searing droopy gum leaves and
Grevillea flowers
And the backs of a marching Aboriginal tribe.

But their resilience matched the onslaught
And they marched along,
Babies in woven bags and children in hands.

…

We were a marching troupe of homo sapiens –
A motley tribe of the suburban world,

As we walked along a sandy trail

That was carved through the land;
Up long hills, down the descents, and past the
Spiky, serrated trees.

A crunch was metrically repeated
As our footsteps displaced the sand,
And as our mouths began to dry…

Eventually we descended into the valley
Of the tall and shadowy forest:
And deep into dark we went.

Leaves crunched underfoot
With every measured step,

And little tweets of tiny birds
Rang out in the echoic forest.

They pierced the shadows and quiet
Only to disappear back into nothing.

Our march continued past
Knobbly gums and frilled ferns, and
Through a narrow corridor of
Scratchy tangles and shrubs…

Then finally out in a clearing! :
Out on top of a small stone cliff,
Peering over the depths of the forest
At a million, rustling leaves.

We scrambled down a slope
With rocks and soil loose under our feet,
And suddenly that was it:
We were in the ancient cave.

On the wall was the most intense red paint;
A simple wet earth pigment
Smeared as an animal on the old rock –
Primal human expression,
Created by the hands of an ancient human
Thousands of years ago.

And in that dark and breezy valley,
Surrounded by the beautiful forest,

We sat in our bright polyester clothes

And thought about work on Monday.