by Hannah Borrell

Sun burns low—
light spills across cracked orange soil.
Soft paws move,
toughened by the canvas and distance.

Kookaburras tittle-tattle
in the high limbs.
A ripple stirs
the still edge of the billabong.
The wild gossips—
never quiet for long.

Not marsupial,
not reptile,
not what it expected.

Dingo.

A settlers’ shape between trees,
listening for rhythms
they don’t yet understand.

They hunt,
they thirst—
not for blood alone,
but for the right to stay
in eucalyptus shadows,
where stories root
and ghosts still pace.

The canines tune to the land—
its paintings, dreaming, totems.
Another story
of a country still deciding
who belongs.