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For what we can hope to afford what luxury, watching this wagtail bathe at the pied point of infinity, where the pool chinks to maidan, river-lake, bamboo, sky she whisks herself into a scrap of wrapping then scrunches back into shape – gifts her separate feathers to water, then claims them briskly back who wouldn’t want this if they had the wherewithal? along with everything else available to those with options, ease this extravagance of sun and green; goat bleat; the confident bulbul proclamation from up in the fig and no canned tat from speakers it comes at a price, this peace: satisfied storks folding their wings on arrival; in-vogue egrets cat-walking by the skeletal cattle guiltless as the shawled dame who sweeps foot-hot stone with a top-hat shush; blameless as the slender khaki’d chap crew-cutting the verge harmless as the pinafore kids, kicking dust; clueless as that bony jester, turtling his coracle across the dried out reservoir past the village stray, who in his turn roulettes a wattled lapwing from her nest then grins his own dog doctrine, smuttily shouldn’t they share in the costly morning? wouldn’t they too grow fat if they could? thankful for blandness of purpose, breath see the wagtail celebrate! fling her morsel body into space! then light again on the endless ledge having snatched perhaps a passing fly, or danced a demon back from death 74 Colin Hughes
page 75
Río Nuevo Huge mounds of earth, upturned grass, eucalyptus logs carried along the surface. Around soya farms, land gaped open like a canyon. Terra firma’s revenge. Water rushed down a deep gully carved beyond the wire fences of Argentinean flatlands. Abject sludge pumped through Cuenca del Morro basin, chiselled a network of waterways, ravines. A new river appeared – the Río Nuevo. Rich plaid of woods, bosques, grasslands, natural sponges, now gone for tassels of maize, soya beans, all in rows. Large agro-groups killed the native forest to plant this new golden crop – La soja. Deep rooted trees replaced by tiny rhizomes that grow fast, barely touching the ground, only there a few weeks per year. New owners didn’t rotate their crops. A Martian landscape rapidly arose. As soil shifted, gave up under its own weight breathless, falling behind. Locals sensed buried flows. Nothing was permeable. Shallow tunnels sprung up, erosion hastened, turned streams into deep wide trenches. Campesinos clawed at unstable cliff walls, a clod of soil dissolved in their hands. “It’s basically dust.” Es como polvo. In the middle of a field, a giant canyon drops abruptly away, currents rush at the bottom. The land has been cleft in two. An electricity pole on each side of the bank, its cables still attached to rods leaning sideways, rusty old nails to hung bouquets of artificial flowers. Pampero storm gathers force, wind follows, it laughs out loud, carrying bleached sterile seeds. Leo Boix 75

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Río Nuevo

Huge mounds of earth, upturned grass,

eucalyptus logs carried along the surface.

Around soya farms, land gaped open like a canyon. Terra firma’s revenge.

Water rushed down a deep gully carved beyond the wire fences of Argentinean flatlands. Abject sludge pumped through Cuenca del Morro basin,

chiselled a network of waterways, ravines.

A new river appeared – the Río Nuevo.

Rich plaid of woods, bosques, grasslands,

natural sponges, now gone for tassels of maize, soya beans, all in rows.

Large agro-groups killed the native forest to plant this new golden crop – La soja.

Deep rooted trees replaced by tiny rhizomes that grow fast, barely touching the ground,

only there a few weeks per year.

New owners didn’t rotate their crops.

A Martian landscape rapidly arose.

As soil shifted, gave up under its own weight breathless, falling behind. Locals sensed buried flows. Nothing was permeable.

Shallow tunnels sprung up, erosion hastened,

turned streams into deep wide trenches.

Campesinos clawed at unstable cliff walls,

a clod of soil dissolved in their hands.

“It’s basically dust.” Es como polvo.

In the middle of a field, a giant canyon drops abruptly away, currents rush at the bottom.

The land has been cleft in two. An electricity pole on each side of the bank, its cables still attached to rods leaning sideways, rusty old nails to hung bouquets of artificial flowers.

Pampero storm gathers force, wind follows,

it laughs out loud, carrying bleached sterile seeds.

Leo Boix

75

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