Mallee scene - Flexmore Hudson

On the death-still plain
two steel rails glare.
Then a lame scorched train
limps from the cutting's golden flare
as if each slow pant hurts,
and a sorry flock
of crows go up with a shiver of air,
and a faint hare spurts
from his squat on jerky limbs;
while thin clouds pass and pitilessly mock
the thirsting mallee scrub that the driftsand rims.

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Flexmore Hudson (1913 - 1988) Australia
Source: The Boomerang Book of Australian Poetry, chosen edited and arranged by Enid Moodie Heddle, Longmans, Green and Co., 1956

The Indian Pacific train in Australia surrounded by mallee scrub
Source: Wexas Travel