Q1

Text 1 — Poem
Boomerangs in a Thunderstorm
For Uncle Steve
The clouds are so low that I imagine a puffy hand, reaching out and sending a boomerang off-course. But here we are, like it should be, an uncle and his nephew, throwing boomerangs, tuning the wind. Thunder cracking. Whooping shapes dance across the overcast sky. My lungs are full of the spirits of rain, and it is not long before we are both soaked, riding the storm. Our boomerangs scale the breeze . . . you should always throw a ‘returning’ boomerang into the wind . . . like a sail. On the summit of the sacred owl mountain, Coot-tha Dreaming, throwing boomerangs in a thunderstorm.
The unsettled leaf
spirals to a soaked ground,
rain disguised tears

SAMUEL WAGAN WATSON

Watson, Samuel Wagan, Love Poems and Death Threats, St Lucia: UQP, 2014 ‘Boomerang in a Thunderstorm’ Reproduced with permission from Queensland University Press