In following the waterway across the hill,
York gum saplings holding out against
the erosive sidewash induced by downpours,
you come across the leg of a sheep, flesh
eaten away, bones held together by sinews
that have dried and tightened—the leg
is seized in the moment of “fall to your knees...”
It points neither up nor down the hill, nor divinely
the length of the waterway. A sheep death
under the old regime, a time when sheep
kept the grass down and died to rot
where they fell. Dismembered by foxes;
strewn about. Most of the corpses
were relocated before we arrived,
but the odd bleached skull, thigh bone,
clump of fat and wool remain. And the leg.
It keeps its own counsel.