Robyn Lance: Six Poems
Drought
Travelling west the land burns
but the sky withholds its cure.
Slouched in his ute a farmer watches stock grazing roadsides, wonders
how long he can cling to land tortured by extremes, when he’ll be forced
to sell the genetic line, fine-tuned for fertility, once fleshed for profit.
How long? The question a refrain.
How long before the smell of rain?
Robyn Lance
Haiku
forget-me-nots shiver
in the morning breeze
bees buzz the blues
Robyn Lance
The Headmistress
A thickset figure with tight grey curls.
Eyes roll up under fluttery lids as she speaks
the word of the she god to those in her sights.
Spectacles removed, held out then up to tap the teeth.
No irises evident so no eye colour known.
Mere moments of white in the strobed lid-lift-and-fall.
Stopped in corridors, called to the office
girls stare like hares in headlights
though hers have a faulty connection.
The voice rumbles on ‘til silence demands an answer.
The spell lifts. One…
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