Creosote

Is the scent

of an ancestor’s skull kicked
down a bush runway –
an elephant remembers

bones and dust,

the echo of hyena
comedy nights, jaws
on buffalo bones

chalk and dust,

a tall silhouette beyond the runway –
a blind man – inhales the dusk
for ghost-lions
before crossing to light
the camp fire

blood and dust

in the dark, leopards
gaze at embers
of an ancient story

fate throws the bones,
a plane flies
into a hillside

flesh and blood,
bones and dust,

and creosote.