A rock engraving of a fish on one of the many flat areas of exposed rock on the sandstone plateau….

Sandstone Service

I am a person of the sandstone country,
first steps here,
last home already chosen in a place I know,
beneath the sandy clay here.

There have been many here before me,
so many years that the rise and fall of the land,
the worn floors of the caves,
the shelly black ground of the campfire shores,
and paths, made by the feet of thousands of witnesses,
tells me of their presence here still.

And the flowers still bloom
in the winter of the Southern Cross,
as it makes its nightly Pole vault,
keeping its ancient watch
over the sleeping plateaus and escarpments,
creeks and gorges,
and over the night creatures,
who only come alive
when the sun is sleeping.