Camp by the Sea

So near, so clear the heavens are

That, peering through the trees

I glimpse the shy small seventh star

Among the Pleiades.

The tiny ships at anchor ride,

The tiny sails are furled;

Soon, soon comes in the midnight tide

From half across the world.

On cliff and shore the bush leans down

Dim-mirrored in the deep.

Hushed as the sea, this tented town

Breathes softly, fast asleep.

 

Kath McKay

“The Sydney Bushwalker”

December 1967

---

“The Coal”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A whip’s crack wakes him. He feels the bed

Of banksia branches he broke and spread

Down when he came there. Now it is light

And the oval cave’s mouth frames the white

Sea, and the gully of Curracarang

Where the wind, that all night howled and sang

Travels the tea-tree scrub and comes

Silvering the banksias and the sapling gums.

All night he has slept there and the cave

Has sheltered and kept him warm from the rave

Of rain and wind that howled as it tore

At the break of branches: You shall be poor;

You shall lose faith, be desolate,

Follow a star, that star curse your fate.

You shall lie down and with last breath

Pray not to waken from that death.

From this despair, the wind cried scorn,

Shall your fierce exultation be born.

This he remembers the wind howled and sang

All night through the gully of Curracarang,

Now that the whip-bird’s tongue has uncurled

The shattering crack of its thong at the world.

Roland Robinson

From “Tumult of the Swans”

1953

---

Eden Earth

Again the Eden-earth

blazes before my eyes.

In gold leaves, green

blades, the gums rise.

Blood-deep there, and

there, on either hand,

sculptured fires of

chalice flowers stand.

From the cliff-face

hangs the pale shower,

spray and spray of

rock-lily in flower.

And naked-cool to my

palms are the limbs

of the gums that hold

orchids in their arms.
 

Roland Robinson

from Curracurrong Creek

in “Grendel” 1967

 

Era In Haiku

The candelabra

Coolly touches the night

With its burning fingers.

Silent intruder,

On the wall, the torchlight traps

The huntsman spider.

On the iron roof

Scraping branches: the wind keeps me

Thinking of sleep.

The tide is governed

By the moon, the wind is

A law unto itself.

On the sleeping coast

Of summer, the heat

Rises with the sun.

Morning sunlight

Through glass windows, lying

On dusty floorboards.

A spider’s old coat,

Weightless on the windowsill,

Crumbling in my hand.

Lines in the book of time

Scrawled by the tide,

There in the sand.

The child, the lover,

The stranger, do you see them

In that old man’s face?

The glistening sea

Seamlessly slips

Beneath the blue horizon.

Beneath the high blue

Dome of the sky, the children

Breach the foaming waves.

My piss amounts not

A drop in the bucket of

This salty ocean.

The grey hungry sea,

Foam and spray; above our heads

A raven’s despair.

Old man angophora

Wedged in a crevice, its limbs

Grapple with the air.

In a language of leaves

Sibilant sentences

Speak for the wind.

 

On steamy hillsides

Warm summer mist sizzles

With cicada song.

Through an open doorway

A thin-bodied breeze

Embraces my chest.

Heartbeat

Of everlasting time –

The days.

Colin Gibson
January 2001