A Sunset Poem by Kenneth Slessor

THE old Quarry, Sun, with bleeding scales,
Flaps up the gullies, wets their crystal pebbles,
Floating with waters of gold; darkness exhales
Brutishly in the valley; smoke rises in bubbles;
Suddenly we stop at the meeting of two trails.
'Do you remember?'
'But now everything is changed—
Trees ringed with death, the creek with its bells clanking
Dried like white bone.' Even our voices are estranged.
Darkness chokes the river; so nearly what I am thinking
It echoes, the whole thing might have been arranged!