in spring sunlight
the silver lizard’s
ancient skin
The skink is five million years old
Chasing a three-hundred-million-year-old bug
it runs under the raised base of a steel post
The iron is as old as Earth
The fence: two winters
The skink emerges, scampers, pauses
Filtering the rain of wavelengths
its scaly integument glistens,
passes heat into blood
It’s day one of Spring
in early Djilba
On the post’s hard body
at the edge of a weld
rust shoves aside grey paint
Djilba is one of the six seasons of Noongar country in south-west Western Australia
First published in Creatrix 48, January 2020