And whence the future sprang.
Be powerful above us all. Be sure.
Karri Forest
Listen!
Listen!
Do you hear?
The whispering columns of the sap … the ear
To the great bole; that giant pulse, that heart so near.
You hear —
You hear?
It is your own heart’s thunder that you hear …
But there can be no danger in these trees;
No beast lurks, and no dark shadows freeze
The liquid patterns of the forking sun.
The leaves, and the light — all things run
Into a concord — the silence and the stir;
Feather and fur
Commingle. A murmur in the wood
Of maternal flesh and blood.
Like motes in the stilled air,
The spark of birdsong — here, now there —
Wagtail and wren together,
Twig-fall and whirr of feather,
With knock of mallet and the drop of axe
Where moving loggers snig their stacks
Like a fist of matches by the rail,
And the saw’s torn, spasmodic wail.
The earth receives
The waste, the leavings and the leaves.
O ecstasy of birth that could devise
From a scale’s horn that intricate light plume!
Could twist this stuff of root and bark and bloom
To columns of the running sap, and rear their spires
Against the sullen, catabolic fires.
The leaves breathe, the sap runs —
Burn still the unapproachable suns;
Still falling, rising, falling, felled,
Silently the gaps are filled,
As a pool after rain with its own colour fills
In these song-thronged pale echoing parallels.
Merv Lilley (b.1919 d.2016)
The Lesson
Walking in the moonlit night
I shot a flying fox
for their experience
and the eldest said,
‘and now can you bring it back to life?’
and I have not shot since.
The many times that I have killed
the small soft thing that flew or ran
was my insurance that I could face
death as easily as I gave.
But giving life is another thing.
Swift
eventually through meditation
you have flashed across my line of sight
telephone lines make no connection
once in a while on cool afternoons sun low
shadows grown long you have gone
into distance and darkness not a speck on the horizon
leaving a soft word that tore its way into the brain
that searches the line for hours tonight
being able to conjure a name to reach
across the distance of permanence
‘Swift’ is the name I have found for you
Swift wings in flight
You will never delight
The boy in my being
Swift wings by returning
Swift to my sky line
I do know you have gone.
11
A lifetime away crystal clear the faintest tingle near enough to decipher its whereabouts
Condamine bells ring in my ears these eighty years of one lifetime remembering
I will go back I will wind water from the deepest well I will listen to the tinkle of water falling
Hear the bells as milkers rise in the mornings feeding towards the yard
Dropping yesterday’s mulch to reinvigorate the grass coming up through the earth
Bringing in the milk of life completing the endless circle of living existence
I will hear the sighing as she leaves me
I will know she is no longer with me
16
Yet the voice of poetry sweet and clear as the bells the birdsong the crickets the loneliness
The wildflowers springing seasonally all over again following drought and rain
Myriads of bird and wildlife shrieking hysterically with delight
Her voice soft and clear telling me in whispers of our love saying regretfully
it’s time to go it’s time
to leave this life
I’m going now.
Dorothy Hewett (b.1923 d.2002)
The Valley of the Giants
In the burnt-out trunk
in the karri forest
hand in hand
one dark one fair
one bonneted one
with a nimbus
of platinum hair
like lost children
out of a gothic tale
behind us his Akubra —
hatted head
sprouting the unseen antlers
my father the wood demon
deep in shadow
growing out of a tree
snapped up by a box Brownie
the 60 year old negative
exposed into the present
like a parable
the dark father the
dark child
subdued and powerful
the blonde
in her white dress
blazing into the light
disturbed uncertain
transitory
as a cabbage moth
alighting for an instant
in the forest
those judging figures
orchestrate the scene
rising up out of the litter
on the forest floor
implacable as horned owls
from the heart’s darkness
what lies behind that door
what troubled lives
what beckoning secret
hidden from the white-frocked child
the giant tree fallen down
the father dead
the children grown
the tragic rotting order overthrown.
In Midland Where the Trains Go By
In Midland still the trains go by,
The black smoke thunders on the sky,
Still in the grass the lovers lie.
And cheek on cheek and sigh on sigh
They dream and weep as you and I,
In Midland where the trains go by.
Across the bridge, across the town,
The workers hurry up and down.
The pub still stands, the publican
Is still a gross, corrupted man.
And bottles clinking in the park
Make symphonies of summer dark.
Across the bridge the stars go down,
Our two ghosts meet across the town.
Who dared so much must surely creep
Between young lovers’ lips, asleep,
Who dared so much must surely live
In train-smoke off the Midland bridge.
In Midland, in the railway yards,
They shuffle time like packs of cards
And kings and queens and jacks go down,
But we come up to Midland town.
O factory girls in cotton slips
And men with grease across your lips,
Let kings and queens and jacks go down,
But we’ll still kiss in Midland town.
An oath, a whisper and a laugh,
Will make our better epitaph.
We’ll share a noggin in the park
And whistle songs against the dark.
There is no death that we can die
In Midland where the trains go by.
Once I Rode with Clancy
Once I rode with Clancy through the wet hills of Wickepin,
By Kunjin and Corrigin with moonlight on the roofs,
And the iron shone faint and ghostly on the lonely moonlit siding
And the salt earth rang like crystal under
neath our flying hoofs.
O once I rode with Clancy when my white flesh was tender,
And my hair a golden cloud along the wind,
Among the hills of Wickepin, the dry salt plains of Corrigin,
Where all my Quaker forebears strove and sinned.
Their black hats went bobbing through the Kunjin churchyard,
With great rapacious noses, sombre-eyed,
Ringbacked gums and planted pine trees, built a raw church
In a clearing, made it consecrated ground because they died.
From this seed I spring — the dour and sardonic Quaker men,
The women with hooked noses, baking bread,
That salts their bones for thanksgiving when they’re dead.
It’s a country full of old men, with thumbscrews on their hunger,
Their crosses leaning sideways in the scrub.
My cousins spit to windward, great noses blue with moonlight,
Their shoulders propping up the Kunjin pub.
O once I rode with Clancy through the wet hills of Wickepin,
By Kunjin and Corrigin with moonlight on the roofs,
And the iron shone faint and ghostly on the lonely, moonlit siding
And the salt earth rang like crystal underneath our flying hoofs.
And the old men rose muttering and cursed us from the graveyard
When they saw our wild white hoofs go flashing by,
For I ride with landless Clancy and their prayers are at my back,
They can shout out strings of curses on the sky.
By Wickepin, by Corrigin, by Kunjin’s flinty hills,
On wild white hoofs that kindle into flame,
The river is my mirror, the wattle tree our roof,
Adrift across our bed like golden rain.
Let the old men clack and mutter, let their dead eyes run with rain.
I hear the crack of doom across the scrub.
For though I ride with Clancy there is much of me remains,
In that moonlit dust outside the Kunjin pub.
My golden hair has faded, my tender flesh is dark,
My voice has learned a wet and windy sigh
And I lean above the creek bed, catch my breath upon a ghost,
With a great rapacious nose and sombre eye.
Living Dangerously
O to live dangerously again,
meeting clandestinely in Moore Park,
the underground funds tucked up between our bras,
the baby’s pram stuffed with illegal lit.
We hung head down for slogans on the Bridge,
the flatbed in the shed ran ink at midnight.
Parked in the driveway, elaborately smoking,
the telltale cars, the cameras, shorthand writers.
Plans for TAKING OVER … 3 YRS THE REVOLUTION.
The counter revs. out gunning for the cadres.
ESCAPE along the sea shelf, wading through
warm waters soft with Blood.
WOW! WHAT A STORY! … guerilla fighters
wear cardigans and watch it on The Box,
lapsed Party cards, and Labor’s in again.
Retired, Comrade X fishes Nambucca Heads,
& Mrs Petrov, shorthand typist
hiding from reporters
brings home the weekly bacon.
But O O O to live
so dangerously again,
their Stamina trousers pulling at the crutch.
The Salt Lake
It was hot dry country
so we had picnics by the lake
running races on Boxing Day
from the tennis courts we could hear
the thud of tennis balls
the mixed doubles calling out one love
diving from the springboard
into the clear lethal water
picking the leeches off our legs and arms
through our stinging eyes
the trees stood upright
stiff dying some already dead
flocks of wild duck flew overhead
crying in a cacophony of mourning
the horizon wavered dropped into the glittering lake
from the bank we could hear
the merry go round turning
turning faintly in the breathless air
playing a fairground tune
that was like a warning
but we took no notice.
Katakapu (b. c.1930)
A Stranger to this Country, I’m Following Them
I’m a stranger to this country,
so I’m tracking along with these others.
I like this area, with its many beautiful1 gullies.
Extensive rocky hilly country —
I’m feeling a bit lost in this country.
Lots of cadjebut canopies2
in line at Marlanyjinya waterhole.
1 The word is used of highly decoarated dancers in a corroboree.
2 They are beyond a rise, so he can’t see the bases of the trees yet.
Pampanulu Jina Marna Ngurra Panalala
Pampanulu jina marna ngurra panalala.
Karlka-karlka mirnilypurru
yururtu ngalanya ngayiny kanyilkunti.
Murrulu ngurra yartara —
ngayinyja ngurra wara-wara.
Jalkukurru pukarnkarri warnta
jilukarra Marlanyjinya yinta.
Night Drive in a V-8 Buckboard
Darting here and there,1 eager to get going.
‘Let’s tie the load tightly on the buckboard!’2
‘When will we be on the move?
After sunset?’
‘After supper we’ll move, nonstop in the moonlight.’
He’s really speeding across the
plains country to Kurrkara.3
The engine is rough, not too good,
not running smoothly yet.
He really let it go down the steep slope,
with no fear of the bridge.
The wheels make a different sort of noise
on the stony patches.
In the dazzling beam the V-8 is running
really fast now,
speeding southwards through the darkness
towards the open country.
Concentrating in the sandy country,
skimming along past Yamarlingurrpa.
Let the tyres hum.4
The many bends at Yarnajangu
are bouncing back the engine’s booming roar.
Steam, radiator!
At Yartujangu he is standing for a while.
In the pool of light heading south at Yirrka-Pukara
the vehicle is speeding fast.
At Nganta-Nganta the engine’s exhaust
is throbbing perfectly.
1 Yintiri wakarnirnu means ‘going here, there and everywhere’. The driver, Billy Hill, manager of De Grey Station, is constantly changing direction as he goes to various buildings (store, stables, windmill room, etc.) on the station, collecting all the things he has to take out to the outstation.
2 Warnta karlu-karlu (literally ‘timber lightweight’) refers to the buckboard, which in those days had timber tray and sides.
3 Kurrkara was the name of the place where the old Broome Highway crossed the De Grey River on a bridge, about a mile south of the De Grey homestead.
4 The word for this noise is difficult to translate briefly into English. It refers to the soft continuous crunching sound of the tyres compressing the grains of sand together as they roll over them.
Ngananyakarra Nganyjarra Nganil Ngarri
Yintiri wakarnirnu, ngayinyju marrapalu.
‘Warnta karlu-karlu palarr kajunjarra
luwutu warnikatangka!’
‘Ngananyakarra nganil ngarri nganyjarra?
Mapalyanyangka?’
‘Japajarra nganil jinarra wirlarrakarti.’
Parta marra pirnu ngurra
parlkarrakarra
ngura Kurrkanrakarni.
Nguya-nguya, ngungku pakurta,
yinjinpa pirlurruyanya.
Yinyal murru marnu yirri kanimparra,
kurntarriyanya purijirra para,
partangka nyaarr marnu yilku murrulungura.
Jintararrangka Piyayiti jawarrany murtipa jajukarra,
jungkurl pirnu karti wurruru ngurrarra
marliny karturra.
Yintin marramarralu kayinyu ngurra yumpa-yumparra,
Yamarlingurrpamalu jinanyku,
taya nyangkaly manmara.
Jurnti ngarrparnilu ngurntirri pumarr punganmara
Yarnajangulu. Ritiyayita yukuntarri!
Yartujangumalu jampa wurtarri.
Mirnarrangura karti wurruru Yirrka-Pukarangura
pirrjarta jangkarri jungkurl pirnu.
Nganta-Ngantangura yinjinpa karta
nyangkarr manmara.
Waparla Pananykarra (b. c.1930 d.1995)
It’s Standing Still After the Motor Has Been Started Up
The welder has been started up,
it’s stationary.
He will put holes in these iron rails1
with the welder.
While being held firmly in your hand
it makes streams of sparks.
The welder noise roars
as the holes are made in the steel.
The lengths of iron have been left
standing up in a straight line.
The wooden railings are complete,
joined up in their rows by Clancy McKenna.2
1 A stockyard is under construction, with upright lengths of old railway line for posts and local timber for rails (probably cut from coolabah trees).
2 The posts have now been put up in position, and the wooden railings fastened to them. The stockyard is completed.
Ngurntirri Jipantangu Nguntuntu Karriyan
Wiyilta ngurntirri jipantangu
nguntutu karriyan.
Nyalila pananya riyil-riyil yayin
pirli jan wiyiltakartangku.
Marangka palarr karra mantangura
nyintapa jirntakurru marnu.
Wiyilta ngurntirri pumarr karriyan
marntarra pirli jarnanyuru.
Layin junturarrangka yayin wanyjantangu.
Warnta pukarrmaru, yirtinykarra
wanyjantangu Wamiyingungu.
Jirlparurrumarra Piraparrjirri
Our Poor Trees are Almost Submerged
Our poor trees from Pukapannya1