SIMON PATTON

Chinaman Creek

We sift the 36,000 seconds
of daily ten-hour shifts
for fragments of gold
worth more than my lifetime’s worth.
We are foreign to foreigners
who find this place stranger
than us, but earth is earth
and here by knack
and by knowlege of its language
we grow enough vegetables
for life.
At night, as I watch, under altered stars,
the voice of the creek
whispers in earshot
raceless names for water.