Seen from the high cutting
the sky drifts white cotton
over dance-floors of water
either side the shady creek
that trickles down country
lagoons gummed with water fern
saucepans of wet money
brass polyester gold
couch grass black with swamp
lily dams backed up gullies
and parallel in paspalum
old tillages that fed barns
no one grows patch-crops now
slow-walking black cattle
circle up off cleared flats
past pastel new brick houses
and higher charcoal-barrelled
hills are fields of a war
four hundred years of jihad
though it was first called
the Thirty Years War
buff coats and ships’ cannon
the Christian civil war
of worldwide estrangement
freemasons, smashed colors
the nun-harem, Old Red Socks
wives “turning” for husbands
those forbidden their loves
bitter chews of an old plug
from Ireland and Britain
Come day go day
God send Sunday
Forget the Boyne Water
six pack, Lord Lundy,
Guy Fawkes and Crummel
as kids forget Rommel—
bigot slurs jostled tempers
here, right into the dairy age
almost the 4-wheel-drive age
but belief had turned private
and unpreached help, drily spoken
having long become the message.