Still

The spinifex grasses bristle like wire
    on this skeleton land.
The breath of the desert and the bones of the Dreaming
    have hardened to rock.
The eons have washed away its identity
    like a waterless ocean.
But what remains is eternal.
 
The grasses root in the red dust
    inert chemistry of the desert.
This granite prairie stretches vastness taut
    and swallows the sky.
Let he who imagines that beauty is transient
    gaze upon this land.
It will outlive him.