“The sky and I are in open conversation”
– Sylvia Plath.
l
Recollections
A kookaburra laugh cracks the quiet,
Fractured mosaics of a dormant chorus.
Away goes the dull summer breeze
A voiceless invasion,
Dry mouth
Dry limbs
Dry eyes
Aunty, Aunty?
My small hands make shapes in the red dirt;
Unformed incantations.
Grit sifts through tired fingers
Grain by grain,
Stone turns to sand,
She turns into memories.
Flashes of her face.
Bury it,
Bury it.
Her eyes when she smiled.
Push it down.
I carry too much with me.
Too much sand.
Too many memories.
Bottle it up.
Where can I put it all down? Hands rake over crude squiggles, Clawing my soul.
Dirt cakes my palms.
Screw the lid on tight.
I leave the clearing,
The headstone effigy
And a single rose.
Aunty, Aunty?
ll
A silent intake of breath
The spirit’s breath
Tussles Aunty Grace’s hair.
A mottled grey flurry
A rustle of leaves
A silent intake of breath.
Reverence.
Wingbones pull against filmy skin As she circles the fire,
Skin alight with ember,
Freckled with age.
Supple is the caress
Of aged immortality.
Eucalyptus branches croak
As Old Man magpie comes to watch, Eyes kindled and
Feathers damp with the spirits of rain, Wet seasons blessings.
The Old Man flaps his wings
Ancient bones protest against taut skin.
Pit
Pat
The ancestors fall from his feathers.
He looks at Grace,
Expectant.
The Old Man is waiting.
I am waiting.
We are reverent.
She cocks her head
Her voice but a warble
Against the winds solemn march. “Do you want to hear a story, old fella?”
lll
Rebirth
Time heals all,
But memories are nomads,
Crammed in compartments,
Wandering halls,
Turning tight corners,
Traipsing to the precipice…
I fall.
Everytime.
I see her in the subtle forming of the earth, In the Babbling brooks
Glutted with fish,
And the budding shoots
Soon to swallow the land.
I see her in my daughter,
Rose.
Frolicking in my child-rivers,
Turning water to gold
As the blessing of growth Settles in her bones,
Mothered by the loam.
Sprung from the fecund valley, Come from the ash,
The salt
And clay.
A ghost in this new-old life.
One day I will tell her,
But not now.
Not here.
Not amongst this unquiet earth.
Here, we are reverent.
We are loved.
We are one.
Here,
We are of the earth.
IV
Quickly, before you go
An embrace.
Rich oils
And clay-baked earth.
Half-cooked damper,
Burnt wood,
Animal feed,
Dry linen,
Spoken
But never once said.
“Let me show you something”
A needle on her compass,
I follow.
Footsteps on familiar ground, Mud squelching under calloused feet, The belly of the earth,
Swollen with beauty,
Stained with the sun’s hues.
In the clearing
A kookaburra squeals.
Empty,
But not alone.
Never alone.
Blades of grass tickle our backs Petrichor hangs heavy,
Seeping into my skin.
Poking my soul.
Grace points, I look.
In the low branches hangs
Old Man Magpie and his wife Three baby birds
All grey
And squawking
And fresh
And reborn.
Eyes squinting against the enormity Of life.
My fingers are taken
By wrinkled palms.
Like tree bark
Dappled with the shade of time. “This is forever. We are forever”.
V
Reprise
Wrinkled hands take nimble fingers, An ephemeral touch
In a pocket of eternity.
Rosie makes indistinct shapes In the red dirt.
Plucking at the grit,
Hands lined with red.
Silence.
And then a beating of wings,
The call of an old friend,
Laden with the sweeping
Narrative of time.
Old Man Magpie lazes on a branch, Swatting his wings in the heat, Watching,
Waiting.
A slow warble,
The unsung ancient verse.
Solace in wisteria,
Chorus of the quiet earth.
A cock of the head,
A bow of the neck,
And then,
He is gone.
I am saddled with all
That once drove me away,
But perhaps memory
Is the only home I will get.
And so I say,
“Let me tell you a story”.
A kookaburra laugh cracks the quiet.
All at once I have lived
And I am living
And I will live
And I am here
And I am real
And Rose is holding my hand And I feel Grace
And I am Grace
All at once,
I am here
And I am of the earth. We are of the earth.
