A Compendium of Poems.

             Under the mallee bough,

                Across the quiet waters,

             Blended with cries of river birds,

                We hear our ancestral voices . . .

                                                         

A compendium of poems.

                                             

( Sponsored by : The Scriveners Review.)

 

 [Page One]

My little window on the Western Wall.

My little window on the western wall,

Opens out on the whole wide world.

It opens out on the mallee plains,

It opens out to the summer rains.

It opens out on a sonorous dawn,

With it’s promising colours in pastel tones.

And embraces within all sorrows and joys,

In silent parade past my western wall.

Flowers of Spring as the seasons go,

Winter wild, Summer mellow.

Fields below the farmer sows,

Crops in serried paddock rows.

A child cries out! A strange bird sings,

Through the sphere of silence rings.

A whiff of desire of a memoried dream?

Against the clatter of urbanity.

Upon a highway that cuts the view,

Cars sweep past in the morning new.

That with the deepening, darkening dusk,

Wearily steal back home to rest.

Yes…

My little window on the western wall

Opens out on the whole wide world,

And within its embracing vision deep,

I watch the world wake..I see it sleep.

(J C.)

 

[Page Two]

Wonder.                                                                                         

I saw a fairy once,

On a silent, winter’s night

Starlight and frost cold – still

The night enchanted.

A streak of golden light

Across the window pane

Slanting downwards,

Fading swiftly, falling,

Then gone.

Faery, formed of frosty starlight,

Travelling on a golden starbeam,

From worlds beyond our narrow vision,

From times and places gone and ended;

From ages not yet born.

Golden dust of ancient wonder

Drops, unseeing,

Across the boundless dark of night

Scatters,

Dropping, fades and quickly dies,

And in a moment less than nothing,

Gives us

Glimpses of eternal worlds.

(H T.)

 

[Page Three]

The Song of Tess and Riccardo.                                  

They met once a week on the banks of the river,

Riccardo from the Mallee come to fetch water,

From the camp of the Italians burning charcoal,

Tess, from Portee Station .. as a servant girl,

And Tess taught Riccardo the song of echos,

Off the cliff-face over the river,

And there they sang songs of love to each other.

At first their songs were for their own laughter,

And then their songs were for their own tempting,

And then songs for their teasing,

And then came the songs of loving….

Tender songs whispering to the swirling waters,

Humming the touch of breeze to leaves of the gum trees.

Each to each they sang into the echos

Off the cliffs over the river,

Over the soft swirling calm of the river,

Over the evening light of the waters,

And the reverberating echoes mixed their songs

Until the words in soft harmony, blended together,

Until the words flowed back to their ears,

Each to each filling their hearts.

Each to each the words filled their senses,

In a gentle, joined ecstasy…

(From the longer poem ; “Song of the Mallee”.)               (J C.)

 

[Page Four.]

The Message of the Swans.

The wind has stripped the leaves

from the trees

today,

Leaving only a few mottled

and tattered shreds to speak

of summer’s growth and glory.

The wind blows yet

Not cold, but strong.

The air is mild, but still-

Oh, the luminous light in the sky

above the tree crowded slope of the hill.

The horses toss their hay in the stables.

Three swans fly urgently into the horizon

wonderful black silhouettes against the low clouds

and strange amber light of a windy sunset

and a lonely star in the west.

It’s only autumn, but

the beat of the swan’s wings say

that winter is close behind us.

(H T.)

 

[Page Five]

The mouse in the hay.

‘Twas one of those mysteries scant resolve,

Can’t quite get how it evolved..

Was down the feed shed getting hay,

When saw near my boot the tiniest mouse,

Aye..

The tiniest mouse, a rodent there, next my boot,

Its body the size of my thumbnail.. aw, shoot!

Like it had not a care..save for its tiny life,

That I could have snuffed out with little strife,

Just the shift of my boot to crush it there,

One less rodent in the feed shed…what to care?

But the sight of that easy, sitting target,

That I could just kill with no repercuss’

The smallest of life, so simple to snuff.

Brought a thought sprung clear to my mind,

One of those moments, subconscious, sublime,

: What if I did the same to the smallest of sunshine,

Did snuff out the sunlight on one tiny spot,

Upon the very spot where a seed was sown,

And that snuffing of sunlight stopped the seed to grow.

What if a multitude of such did follow,

One tiniest spot multiplied by many on the ‘morrow,

Till the whole Earth become barren and fallow,

From that one small act so brutally callow?

Does not the wave from a pebble in a pond,

The thrust of air from the butterfly’s wing,

Reverberate to reach far boundaries beyond?

So to kill this tiniest of mice could end all existence,

A fantasy, surely..worthy of mocking derision..

But then, what right I..to make such bold decision?

So yes..yes, I let that tiniest rodent go its way,

Tho’ I suspect I will give regret come someday,

When I see it flee from a bale of rodent, ravished hay,

But then..I DID spare the Earth from its “end of days”.

Eh?

                           (J C.)

 

[Page Six]

Bunyip.

Bunyip

Sleeping

In the soft grey river ooze

Dreaming

In the dark and stagnant hollows

of the deep pools.

Waiting

out the ages

While the water

shields and covers him

with mud, and the

refuse of yellowed, rotting leaves.

Sometimes

he stirs

in the secret dark beneath the willows.

While little claws creep upon his skin

graze across his loose laid limbs.

Little feet and mouths touch

his closed eyelids.

Stray sunbeams

Glancing through the deeps

find him.

And he thinks upon the old dark age

When the earth was hot and new,

When chaos was

When the ground spat forth molten rock

And rivers and canyons of fire

carved its face,

and dragons and thought were born.

He breathes,

and sleeps again.

For it was long ago,

that chaos time

and now the earth

is dark and quiet and still.

But times

When the full moon pours

it’s silver light upon the waters,

and the isle is black –

He wakes,

rises from the deep

and looks upon the world again.

Black and silver is the night.

Silent, enchanted.

Only the night bird’s call

falls upon him.

He sees

The light upon the hill

no stranger than the fires

of the old brown race of men

of long ago.

Who knew him

and wove him in their dreams.

Who gave him name and shape

and homage to the once was world

and dragons, that time forgot.

He cries,

forlorn, unremembered

for the world cast him away,

when their bare feet passed

from the river lands.

Oh,

Bunyip sleep.

Less you disturb

the thoughts of other men.

Whose shod feet do not touch the land.

Who cannot hear

the quiet, deep secrets of this earth.

Sleep and dream

until chaos is reborn

time crumbles

and the earth is fire

once again.

(H T.)