Totem Cult

Photos: Mike Silver

Stretched whitely at the paddock ends
Hang the totem poles in imminent glory.
Soon the short jog will initiate
The barbarous reel from end to end;
Here, some will tightly strain in fetid obeisance;
Ecstatically, hands upstretched to pluck
The grace from heaven; and then yonder.
Ten thousand rusty leather lungs will deify
The ovoid totem's
Mind-blinding, slow swallow-curving swoop.
"May Saturn bring strength and fertility To our bulls and Perendale Rams this day."
The tribal laws of the totem say
You may not kill the bird or beast
It represents in symbolic array;
Long then will flourish the week's end feast.

R. H. Griffin