Gazing With Honey-Eyed Intensity

The dingoes picked the calf’s bones
clean – we hear them howling in
the night inviting others to the feast,
our own dogs know the invitation and
decline, uneasy with these aliens
slinking in their late night dreams.

In morning light the bones gleam bright
amongst the green, wary cattle watch
with widened eyes resigned, so easy to
believe they understand – we count
the remaining calves again, just nine.
The tiny piebald one is gone.

Who is to blame? Dingoes these days’
roam the Stanley banks with freedom,
returned to their old ways, gazing out
of shadows with honey-eyed intensity
at meals afoot in fields filled for their
pleasure. As it was in years gone by.

Now they breed with domestic dogs
running free – the age of innocence is
gone; soon, when a child dies up here,
there’ll be a too-late change in attitude
with a revival again of the drear and
brutal dingo culls of yesteryear.
© 18 April 2007, I.D. Carswell