A bastion of rocky cliffs in brooding silhouette.
Restless wind still carries faint old phantoms of the night.
A sense of menace hovers over Battle Mountain yet.
Snarling crags in morning light gleam black as anthracite.
Lone falcon, folding pinions, swoops ruthless from the sky.
One more casual killer in this place of predators,
Captured echoes of the past in wild defiant cry.
Frozen prey awaits the strike. One more death, one more.

Withered bones returning to scattered dust and clay.
Blind gullies, tangled thickets hiding shame of yesteryear.
Spirits of the dead remain, that cannot go away,
Crumbled rotted remnants of woomera and spear.
Warrior shades chew ghostly beards denied eternal peace.
Lubras, piccaninnies, grinning skulls all lifeblood shed.
Remnant strewn hillside, harvest of the black police.
Death ground of the Kalkadoons. Wind sighs “They’re dead. They’re dead!”

Published in The Cattle Dog's Revenge (Central Queensland University Press, 2003).