weight of a life
a 3 kg container of grit in a paper bag
reduced to a fine gravel, a white-grey rubble
poured clumsily out onto muddy red earth, along a fence-line of a paddock farmed by father and son
while teenage strangers
shot cans off a log and ride trail bikes around us
a testosterone din
rising up like crows
taking on all the bad feelings, omens, regrets, hurts, violence
and flapping with it around our heads
as we stumble through
this ritual to release the demons.