Poetry

early morning rain

colleen Poetry ,

Mornings bring a new day, a new freshness. Even in the rain, mornings are new and the pains that are with us and the aches that beset us looks different once the new day begins. The following is a poem I wrote expressing the transformation that comes once we are up and out walking in the morning. It belongs to the section in A Call to Listen called The Web

early morning rain

mouth wide open
tongue thrust out
to jab the flat metallic sky
jolt it into action
eyes tightly closed to taste
the full sensation of the rain
kerplopping on my tongue

fresh manna from heaven
its tickles make me laugh
showers down my throat
into the marrow of my bones
arms high with cries from my heart
more please more
it falls pelts against my body
i jump in delight splash
down into puddle

the sky crying
cleanses make new my body
wracked with sobs and bitter salty tears
wept through the night

the web

colleen Poetry , , ,

waiting_spider_web

This is the second section of my poetry book A Call to Listen that you will get to enjoy, one poem a day to think about. It has 13 poems in this section about life and the moments and memories that are part of that. Enjoy.
This first poem actually called the web which the section is named from, was about one day I was sitting in the garden admiring a butterfly enjoying the beauty of a white azalea and the blue flowers of the plumbago. She flitted about amongst the flowers as if all her christmases had come at once.

Meanwhile I was also admiring the yellow black striped spider . . .her web across the shrubs. I had earlier admired the beauty of the web with the jewelled dew sparkling in the early sun. It was dry now, but I could still see the web. When the encounter happened I jumped up in response and cried out ‘no’ but the whole thing was almost instantaneous.

spider web
” . .it spins out
jewelled glistening dew . . ”

the web

curves and lines orbit
between the slate blue plumbago and the white azalea
illusive in the stare of the day it spins out
jewelled glistening dew
long dried as noon had come

a butterfly in flights of fantasy
each interlude on its terms
flits and flirts with a shimmer and quest
communing with the nectar of life

its next encounter a delicious tangled seduction
contortionist struggle into the stillness of surrender
the yellow-ribboned spider winding with nimble fingers
caressing touch a consummation

parachilna rumble

colleen Poetry , ,

parachilna rumble

dangerous to blink
driving into parachilna
population seven
not even the dusty brown dog
gets up to greet us

the furrowed road
edged with dusty tuffs of salt bush
stretches to the horizon
in this boundless land

parachilna is a welcome stop

a hot hazy town
a red earth town
it glows a red clay aura
burnished red and dusty
even the old pepper trees
are dusty

the prarie pub
is famous for its FMG
Feral Mixed Grill
an antipasta of camel emu goat and kangaroo
quandongs natural limes and bush tomatoes
yet the sparkle of chilled white wine
makes the stop worth while

the barmen like a town crier
calls
train on
and the pub quickly empties
to regroup
across the wide wide dusty street

a distant hum intrudes

chardonnay in hand
we watch the freight train
heavy with coal
ponderously lumber
like a gentle swarthy beast
towards us

the parachilna rumble begins a heavy slow rumble
all three kilometers of it
with muffled grumbles
and slow clanks
hypnotic music of the outback

like children we practice counting this head to tail migration
all two hundred and twenty cars
it recedes in its own time
as the desert reclaims its silence

 

Parachilna was once a town now a pub in South Australia
between Port Augusta and Leigh Creek and west of the Flinders Ranges

vicissitudes of lake eyre

colleen Poetry , , ,

Kati-Thanda It was late August 2009. After record breaking rains in Queensland it was predicted flood waters were enough to arrive by Warburton Channel to fill Lake Eyre. We arrived in time to witness the spectacle of a blinding sun-dried salt pan desert transform.
My poem was in response to this miracle

vicissitudes of lake eyre

bleached salt pans
glint in a hostile sun
their mirage
a phantom deathtrap
in a land of unreachable horizons

yet sometimes flood water
flow
crack the parched earth
eddy into the cavernous silence
and like touch arouses longing
water stirs
awakens a dormant world
into golumptuous life

fish like transparent slivers of glass
brine shrimp trilling tadpoles
become a teaming ocean
luring flocks of birds to roost and feed

a million water birds in a desert sky
a paradise
till drought
kali with a flaming sword
banishes life once again

abandoned

colleen Poetry , , , ,

The next three poems are ones I have chosen, that were written on an adventure to Lake Eyre (the official name I have learnt recently Kati Thanda) in flood. We left from Adelaide and travelled to Maree and after our time around the flooded lake and flying over it and a cruise on the flooded flowing Coopers Creek we returned via Parachilna and the Flinders Rangers National Park. Along the way many ruins of adventurous groups that defied the risks before the records and settled . .some built to stay. All had to abandon the area. In 1856 the Goyder line was drawn across South Australia corresponding to a rainfall boundary believed to indicate the edge of the area suitable for agriculture. North of this the rainfall is not reliable enough.. The following poem was written in response to one of the many ruins.

abandoned

a fallen water tank
rusted blood red
rippled
as sere ribs of a dead beast
lies half buried
in the shifting ochre red earth
against stony ruins
dominantly built

a witness
to the firefly hope
and belief
abandoned

to conquer nature

(In South Australia there are many ruins , remains from the hopeful who built unaware of the goyder line that would be declared in 1865)

coolamon dreaming

colleen Poetry , , ,

‘Dadirri’ means ‘inner deep listening and quiet still awareness.’ It is a ‘tuning in’ to listen and wait. The waiting is important. And it is something we are not used to doing. My poetry collection called A Call to Listen was inspired by reading Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann’s speech to the Australian people. nextwave.org.au/Dadirri-Inner-Deep-Listening M-R Ungunerr-Baumann
In the following poem I arrived at this place smug and full of ‘knowing’ the scientific . . .geological story . However being privileged to sit with a local Indigenous woman and listen to the Indigenous story inspired the following poem

coolamon* dreaming

desert night
a thousand stars drip
over our finke river camp in ormiston pound
dwarfed by walls of rock

heat sighs as it cools
gentle on our cheeks

now firelight flickers on our faces

smug in geological knowledge
that we are camped in a meteor crater
we lounge back
and listen
to the elder
weaves her dreamtime stories
into the tapestry of creation
her eyes dark as night
draw us in

the baby star fell
ancestors tell of a fierce light
its crash to this place

she points up

see the coolamon from where it fell
her finger curves the outline
of a black space in the sky

and still each day
its parents the morning and evening star
circle the earth in search
of their fallen child

i sleep the dreaming
breathe the ancient air
in awe feel connected
aware of the stars as my ancestors

i wake
to hues of mustard and ochre red
last curdles of smoke from the ashen fire
and watch the morning star
journey cobalt-blue sky

* Coolamon a basin-shaped wooden carry-dish made and used by some first peoples (Macquarie)

ormiston pound

colleen Poetry , , , , ,

The Vincent Lingiari Memorial Lecture for 2015 caught my attention recently. It is called ” Custodianship in the Twentieth-first Century given by Jeff McMullen. Most of you would realise it is in memory of the Wave Hill walk off in August 1966. It is a valuable read, can be found on line and it reminds us we still have a lot of work to do to be the Nation we can be proud to call ours. Anyway it begins with these words:
“The great power of the Vincent Lingiari story is that it teaches us how this land sings to us all, how it holds us and nurtures us. This is the common ground we all share.” And I thought wow. . . I did hear it sing that day out on the Larapinta Trail west of Alice Springs and here is the poem of that day. Enjoy

ormiston pound

we climb an ancient path
to the rattle of our tin mugs
and the chinkle of boots disturbing stones
as they shift awkwardly underfoot

quartzite
flanks each side
and summons up rough sharp spurs

serrated edges
like bread knives
cutting the sky
give direction

flints of mica catch the light
blinding and brooding black rocks watch
as menacing phantoms

at the top
we sit breathless
and hot
the wide expanse of ormiston pound
like an enormous bunker
lies below
air drifts with heat and layers of cool
we listen to white man’s story

while an acacia bush nearby
growing from a rocky outcrop
sings to me another story
on the dreaming wind

we are but travellers here

colleen Poetry , , , ,

This stellar autumnal morning reminds me of the walking and writing course I did for  a week along The Larapinta Trail out side Alice Springs.It was led by Jan Cornell and there were about 20 of us in the group. It was a rewarding experience and the following poem was written at a humbling moment along the way.
The quote “We are but travellers here”  is on a poster I had framed many years ago.It is claimed as a quote from the great Australian Josephite Sister,  Mary MacKillop.

It is a reminder we are finite beings.  Therefore live your life to the fullest now and secondly it is a  reminded we are but stewards not owners.

I love the thought in my poem the land is my teacher

we are but travellers here

in desert country
outside alice springs
richly red rock rusted fiery
bruised and brush-worked to indigo
shimmers through hot air

a track like an ancient song line
marks a way
frisks intruders

needle spinifex claw
roots of river-gums
bulbous siphons plunge defiantly
deep into dry river beds

we trudge heavily
sand shifts unevenly

bones picked clean
washed up caught against tree trunks
from the last big wet
a warning this land is merciless
nemesis
teacher

at the end of each day
a truck delivers swags
food water
reminding us we are but travellers here*

*we are but travellers here – Mary McKillop

milky way dreaming

colleen Poetry , , ,

This poem was written from a memory at Alice Springs after  meeting Norah Jurrah Nelson in 2006 and my cousin, seeing I had fallen in love with it buying me her painting of The Seven Sisters, a canvas spread out on the earth held down by four stones . I like to think it still has some red dirt on it. Now framed on my wall.

milky way dreaming

sun ablaze

dark skin

shines with sweat

her eyes look up   catch me

 

she sits on the earth

a red sandy space

at the edge of the alice springs mall

her canvas held down

by four small rocks

 

milky way dreaming

 

a sash of silver gossamer

arches across the black canvas

in a brilliance of stars

to the side seven dotted circles

she points

names the seven sisters

 

only desert eyes know this sky

paint this song of stars

didgeridoo dancing stars

brimming

fiery-white and deep

 

now on my wall

framed

darginyung 1st poem in A Call to Listen

colleen Poetry , , , ,

calltolisten

 

This is  the beginning poems in my Poetry collection. It refers to the traditional language of the first peoples and recognises them as first inhabitants of the area around The Entrance, Tuggerah Lakes where many of my poem are set. (Sometimes spelt darginjung)

darginyung

welcome to country drones
the didgeridoo its spirit
circles the hollowed wood

sings the darkness into dawn
and in its dancing rhythm
the dreaming drifts in