Drumming with the earth.
Down the bush track through the gums.
The dry heat lay so heavy in the air as to
become nauseating.
Already we could hear the sound of drums and bells.
The distinction of the sound led to the belief that the quality,
the density of the sound was not the same as elsewhere.
One could distinctly hear the stick striking the skin and the rim
which gave out some sort of note,
but it was then that the phenomenom would begin: a first
beat would carry into the pale grey skys, would extend
hesitantly like a smoke ring, becoming a perfect circle out of
which other circles would form by magic,
ever increasing, ever purer.
The circles passed beyond the trees and rocks,
stretched over the water pools and a long way out
towards the horizon.
One felt them above the hot trees and the rocks,
and they hadn't ceased to be perceptible before
the stick or the hand struck the skin of the drum once more
and other circles of sound were born so as to reproduce
themselves, and then other beats, which one listened
to in innocent amazement, as one watches
a firework.
