A sky of paired black scales and the diminishing line
an airliner leaves. A window pane
 
of black ice giving the scales and trail of light
a brooding countenance they might or might
 
not merit. The scene unfolding on a winter afternoon
in a clearing south of Sydney, where palms burn
 
and the Javanese deer are being culled
by park rangers using high powered rifles.
 
Nearby, on a state forest fire trail
shadows are dying out in the pad marks of a feral
 
cat as it starts the evening shift.
Night is coming down like the weave and heft
 
of a thrown gauze made from torn feathers
and the wing membranes of greater gliders.
 
A shutter clicking earthward on its rollers.
Will anyone here speak of murder?
 
I will, says the seasoned Ballistics
expert, his clipboard alive with statistics.
 
I will, says the woman with Forensics
on the back of her blue boiler suit – then she clicks
 
her tongue and squats to study the raised
prints a heavy-duty boot has made
 
in the dirt. Who else will talk? Who
has the need or knowledge to give voice to
 
the way a life can end? It’s clear
from those who were there, or near
 
that descriptions of the events that led
to where someone’s life was ended
 
are beyond the calls of the ground and air-
dwelling denizens of this place. Nowhere
 
they say, as one. Nothing, the night wind blows.
A flashlight stutters and dies. The scene is closed.