you wouldn’t see —
the Razor Fish
See
what
I
mean?
Kenneth Mackenzie (b.1913 d.1955)
The Snake
Withdrawing from the amorous grasses
from the warm and luscious water
the snake is soul untouched by both
nor does the fire of day through which it passes
mark it or cling. Immaculate navigator
it carries death within its mouth.
Soul is the snake that moves at will
through all the nets of circumstance
like the wind that nothing stops
immortal movement in a world held still
by rigid anchors of intent or chance
and ropes of fear and stays of hopes.
It is the source of all dispassion
the voiceless life above communion
secret as the spring of wind
nor does it know the shames of self-confession
the weakness that enjoys love’s coarse dominion
or the betrayals of the mind.
Soul is the snake the cool viator
sprung from a shadow on the grass
quick and intractable as breath
gone as it came like the everlasting water
reflecting god in immeasurable space —
and in its mouth it carries death.
A Robin, Too
For Douglas Stewart
There was a drop of scarlet, bright
in the limbs of the dead tree:
a scorching colour aloft in light
where only night should be.
For I had come from the sleeping tent
in the very dusk of morning,
and trod in the frost’s filament
steps that might help adorning
that day’s subsequent sunrise
of light as stern as gold:
and there I saw the robin’s eyes
and his breast red in the cold.
His eyes were brown as the creek bed
where the earthy water ran,
and ah, dear friend! his breast was red
as the breast of a killed man.
But he was lively, he was gay
as a thumb’s marionette.
He was as red as a flower, or day
that had not flowered yet.
I stood in the white felt of frost
blurred where my feet had been,
and he it was I loved the most
in all I yet had seen
of bitter light and bitter cold
and darkened firing wood.
The fire lit where the wood was old
was where the robin stood
a flame, a flame so red and dear,
so little and so bright
that once again the dawn was here
and the assured light.
The Awakening
No glistening cowpat, after all, but the first, worst
snake of the season, dissatisfied with the sun
of October, though the branches began to burst
a month ago, and the fruit has set too soon
this dry and wind-wrung spring.
Apart from the thread of cattle-track, in a whorl curled
outward from its hard and angry little head
it lay shining deceptively at the world
that stepped aside with quick and careful heed
for the shy, savage thing.
Winter melted slowly from the delicate frail scales
that sheathed its devil where it lay so sleek and still
forming a deathly purpose that seldom fails:
for it has all the rapier-speed and steel
of death for a heritage,
and today (I thought) or tomorrow, in the bright light
with shining topaz eye and wide mouth extended
it will move; or in the quiet hours of night,
perhaps, it will move and kill and with the deed
quench its herpetic rage
and winter’s fast in one; each will smother the other
in very repletion, and no more manifest
this cold malice: it will have become blood-brother
to warm life by virtue of that feast
swallowed alive and whole …
But now it waited until I had looked, gone on
and returned: it was there still on the starved grass,
deadly, lovely, painfully absorbing the sun
into its smooth self-seeking coils of grace,
into its dark soul.
Judith Sewing
The afternoon
crowding upon the windows with much cheerfulness
of blue and slanting gold
will end too soon.
Judith has sewn the collar on a dress
that’s excellent though old,
and, with the needle in her idle fingers,
sits and stares,
and out beyond the windows sunlight lingers
softly on a wall of ancient brick, old-red,
and lights the leafless almond-tree with gold.
This might go on for ever.
I might watch her watching the afternoon,
idle and thoughtless; and we both might never
feel the day’s death, the chill of evening,
the blue of dusk, and the rising of the moon.
But I will move, and she will turn to me,
and somewhere, suddenly, a bird will sing
and it will end too soon.
Joan Williams (‘Justina Williams’) (b.1914 d.2008)
No Coward Colour*
Yellow, honey-smooth, pollen sifted,
hail-fellow-well-met yellow;
audacious campaigner, capeweed unloosing
butterfly armies on fallow.
Knee-deep in yellow, the earth shouting,
yellow is not the colour of fear,
yellow is a loquat in the teeth of the sun,
yellow the day’s birth and her bier.
A colour deeper than its sum of self
it cannot hide its burning eye
or tell the topaz to withdraw its fire,
the saffron cup withhold its dye.
Yellow is no coward colour, only lit
on candle flame upon the dead —
let my bitter boy put off his khaki,
eat with me my golden-freckled bread.
* After ‘birthday ballot’ of 18-year-olds for war.
Alec Choate (b.1915 d.2010)
Words For a Granddaughter
We have listened,
too ready to praise her prattle
as the breakthrough of words,
too ready to catch her at last rekindling
the knowing light of our voices
and those of astonished strangers.
Of words indeed is the beginning.
Words are the greatest of all our gifts.
At this moment she sits
in her full scale world of our home’s small garden,
and seeing her jilt without warning
her playthings onto the lawn,
I follow the rush of her eyes
to the wattle bird
as it grips the hibiscus flower,
bending about like a yachtsman playing a sail,
or perhaps to the caterpillar
piling then laying its wildcat fur
up a leaf‘s sheer slide, or to the cabbage moth
blowing about like a star of cloth.
There are no words
to span the spell I see in her eyes.
Speechless with wonder
before she has learned to speak,
her lips are parted petals themselves
with no more sound
than the crimson trumpet the bird has found.
And I wish her many like moments of magic
when, however her life becomes patterned
with words,
their grace and their garbage,
this look is her only answer
and she cannot speak.
Dingo
He runs ahead, hedged in by spinifex,
snared by its height he is too young to clear,
dribbling his strength out on the track
where our wheels snarl and worry at his heels.
Vermin is said, and we could ponder this
around a campfire, but here our chase has heart
in our horizon’s values
to brake back from him should our tyres once touch.
so fragile and so madly straight, the track
we clutch as our life’s thread
he runs on as a thread of death,
looking for some quick gap in the green mesh,
a mouth, a tongue of sand, to lick him off.
And there it is at last, and he skids through,
spinning around to stand and stare
as if he knows we dare not follow.
we slow down, watching, noting how suddenly
the morning shimmers with our voices
and how we breathe a little easier
as so does he.
Now that their fright has melted,
his eyes slant with a question,
a wry scan that tries to niche us in his scheme of wildlife,
the world he knows and which we do not share.
Our tyres move on, he bristles at the sound,
slips past some smaller clumps of spinifex
and goes from us, low-shouldered, at a trot.
Jack Davis (b.1917 d.2000)
Rottnest
These rocks placed here by man
to form a bridgewater
The sea’s age typified
by algae clinging to the stone
The Indian Ocean limitless
breathing might and power
even on this day of calm
I look across at Rottnest
in the far off haze
where my people
breathed their last sigh
for home the mainland
to them the distant blue
What did they do
but stand within the paths
of cloven hooves
Their only crime
to fight for what was rightly theirs
To them the island was a place of souls
departed down through
eons of time but by a savage twist of fate
No flight of soul for them
But chained they waited
for their lot’s conclusion
to be forever part of
the island of the dead
Forest Giant
You have stood there for centuries
arms gaunt reaching for the sky
your roots in cadence
with the heart beat of the soil
High on the hill, you missed
the faller’s ace and saw
But they destroyed the others
down the slope
and on the valley floor
Now you and I
bleed in sorrow and in silence
for what once had been
while the rapists still
stride across
and desecrate the land
Red Robin
Little robin quite still
inoffensive almost pensive
free of heart and will
But you have your enemies so take care and I can tell
you also have to keep an eye
upon the ground as well
Now chooditj that’s the native cat
has a diet of meat
and tiny fledglings
are to him a treat
Now butcher bird with cruel beak
and butcher is his name
him and chooditj are alike
they have a diet the same
So hide your home my little one
where prickle bushes grow
and you can keep a watch above
and I’ll watch from below
Mining Company’s Hymn
The Government is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
They let me search in the Aboriginal reserves
which leads me to many riches
for taxation sake.
Though I wallow in the valley of wealth I will fear no weevil
because my money is safe in the bank
vaults of the land,
and my Government will always comfort me.
They will always protect me,
from the Aborigines there and claims there.
So I can then take wealth whenever I have a need to
and my bank account will grow even more.
Oh! Surely wealth and materialism will shorten the
days of my life, but I will dwell safely protected
by Government for ever.
John Pat
John Pat was a 16-year-old Aboriginal boy who died of head injuries alleged to have been caused in a disturbance between police and Aborigines in Roebourne, WA, in 1983. Four police were charged with manslaughter over the incident. They were acquitted.
Write of life
the pious said
forget the past
the past is dead.
But all I see
in front of me
is a concrete floor
a cell door
and John Pat.
Agh! tear out the page
forget his age
thin skull they cried
that’s why he died!
But I can’t forget
the silhouette
of a concrete floor
a cell door
and John Pat.
The end product
of Guddia law
is a viaduct
for fang and claw,
and a place to dwell
like Roebourne’s hell
a cell door
and John Pat.
He’s there — where?
there in their minds now
deep within,
there to prance
a sidelong glance
a silly grin
to remind them all
of a Guddia wall
a concrete floor
a cell door
and John Pat.
Guddia: Kimberley term for white man
The First-born
Where are my first-born, said the brown land, sighing;
They came out of my womb long, long ago.
They were formed of my dust — why, why are they crying
And the light of their being barely aglow?
I strain my ears for the sound of their laughter.
Where are the laws and the legends I gave?
Tell me what happened, you whom I bore after.
Now only their spirits dwell in the caves.
You are silent, you cringe from replying.
A question is there, like a blow on the face.
The answer is there when I look at the dying,
At the death and neglect of my dark proud race.
Wolfe Fairbridge (b.1918 d.1950)
Consecration of the House
House, you are done …
And now before
The high contracting parties take
Final possession, let us stand
Silent for this occasion at the door,
Who here a lifelong compact make:
That you were not for trading planned,
Since barter wears the object poor,
But are henceforth our living stake
— And hereunto we set our hand.
Be over us, be strong, be sure.
You may not keep from world alarms,
But from the daily wind and rain
Of guessed, or real, or of imagined wrong
Shadow us between your arms;
Be our sincere affection, and maintain
A corner
here for art and song;
Yet no mere image of benumbing calms,
But a bold premiss, where the mind may gain
Purchase for adventurous journeys long.
Be round us, and protect from harms.
A roof well timbered, hollow walls
Where the damp creep never comes,
Kiln-hardened joists no worm can bore;
Low sills where early daylight falls
Beneath wide eaves against the summer suns;
Huge cupboards, where a child might store
Surfeit of treasures; and no cramping halls,
But spacious and proportioned rooms;
A single, poured foundation, perfect to the core.
Be our security against all calls.
Six orange trees, a lemon, and a passion vine.
All the lush living that endears
A home be yours: some asters for a show,
And roses by the wall to climb,
Hydrangeas fat as cauliflowers.
We who (how arduously!) have watched you grow,
We feel you in the very soil; and time
Shall tie your flesh with ours, your piers
And pipes intestinal, that anchor you below.
Be through us, and prevent our fears.
Your windows face the north: the sun
At four o’clock leaps in;
By breakfast-time has swung so high
We lose him; till upon his downward run,
Swollen and yellow as a mandarin,
We catch his amber from the western sky.
Then when the night’s dark web is spun,
Let your glass like a stationary comet gleam,
And lantern to our light supply.
Be our sure welcome, and a wakeful beam.
Though we designed and built you, we
Will not outlive what we have done.
And if our children here succeed,
Our gain is now, and yours. Let this mortar be
Consecrate to death — a place where one
Gladly might wither to his glowing seed.
We serve you then in all humility
Who serve us, and by our sweat were won
When we had most need.
Give us the obligations that make free.
House, you are done … And nevermore
So painted, new, so arrogantly clean;
The tang of lime, the horrid clang
Of footsteps on the naked floor
Will fade to a serene
Patina of sounds and smells that hang
Like the reverberations of a shore
Of history: a hive where love has been,