Above the Flames

Jakarta flames & flashes up at us.
I imagine angry faces turned south
behind a cloak of blackness.
We pass overhead
indifferently,
leaving crystals of ice
to fall in our wake.
I flush hard and smell
a fresh orchard.
To the north the gods tear
great rents in the ebony shawl.
Flashes of lightning
turning night to day.
Behind to the south the
people burn.
Another generation of
Diggers sweat in
their greens.
They think of home,
as they lie still and wet,
listening to the crawling night.
I touch your pictures as we
flash into the northern hemisphere
at 15 kilometres a minute,
and thank God and
generations of ANZACS
that we are free...
and you are all safe within
Tuscan coloured walls
and steel fences of wheat.