StylusLit

September 2017

Back to Issue 2

Terra Nullius

By Chris Ringrose

 

They’re wiping Bondi clean.

The tractor hauls its silver rollers

up and down at dawn

from Icebergs to the rocks

flipping cartons, cups and single

thongs into its orange box.

A daily scrub and rumble

across its acres of beige

ploughs flattened furrows that await

the seeds of footprints to be

scattered through the day,

beach necessities in bags,

smoothed-down coloured towels

that bear a hundred, blue

Australian flags.