Marilyn Humbert

Trilby Station Camp

From Bourke, the dry weather only road of a packed earth and gravel takes us along western side of the Darling River to Trilby Station. This is sheep country, treed vast flat paddocks with lots of stock grids to bump over instead of boundary fence gates. We don’t see any other traffic. Kangaroos rest with mobs of sheep beneath spreading coolabah trees in the river flats. Our camp is secluded, only the wind rustling the tree canopy and the steady eddy of muddy water gurgling around river snags. The station provides amenities for each campsite, a thunderbox on a concrete pad housed in a three-sided corrugated iron shed. In true to outback style there is no door. I try not to overthink. . .it isn’t so much the thought of being sprung but more the chance other visitors.

a snake. . .
contemplation                                                                                          
interrupted

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Marilyn Humbert lives in the Northern suburbs of Sydney NSW Australia. Her tanka and haiku appear in international and Australian journals, anthologies, and online. Her free-verse poems have been awarded prizes in competitions, published online and in anthologies.