In The Under World
-
In the under world I like to roam,
-
Where the stone is eroded like honeycomb
-
And the leaf-tailed gecko makes its home.
-
-
Under and over
the ledges I pry
-
Where stelae at every angle lie
-
And faces of sphinxes stare at the sky.
In this under world the boulders
are
-
Like temple stones in deserts afar
-
Fallen from the perpendicular.
Here, beneath the cliff inclined,
-
I weave where vines are
intertwined,
-
Looking for whatever I happen to
find.
As close to the
lip of a ledge I go
-
I look through the trees which closely grow,
-
Picture framing the coast below
Where palm trees over the forest
stand
-
And the bluest of oceans meets the
land
-
On a golden finger nail of sand.
-
Beneath me are ledges; above me are
walls
-
Where coral ferns clothe the rock
like shawls
-
Hanging where the seepage water falls,
-
-
Where ferns and orchids on boulders spread
-
And filtered beams of light are shed
-
Through the fig tree branches overhead.
Here are the tracks the wild dog
stamped
-
On the floor of the cave where he
tramped,
-
And here’s where the bushland
people camped.
Under the overhang’s ironstone
crust
-
In sand that has gathered, smelling
like must,
-
Ant-lion craters pit the dust.
Here is a scat with fragments of
bone,
-
Here is where time has been left alone,
-
Where life crawled out from under a
stone.
Here is the dust of thousands of
years
-
With tracks of lizards imprinted,
and here’s
-
The stone where the hunters
sharpened their spears:
The hunters who slept in the
sheltering lee
-
Of the cliff that, towering over
me,
-
Watches impassively over the sea.
-
-
Colin Gibson
December 2006
|
-
The Call
-
The South Coast is a
calling me; calling soft and low.
-
Whispering seductively of
places that I know.
-
Down by the beach at Garie,
the sea’s alive with light,
-
Ah! how I’d love to pitch
my tent and camp there for the night!
Although the town around
me, miserable with cold and rain
-
Shrieks aloud,
incessantly, of soul-destroying pain,
-
Far away from sunlit
beaches, a voice above the din
-
Calls: “Come away my
brother, come and wander with your kin.”
Within my heart are
ringing, singing, morning, night and day,
-
Melodies in colour,
symphonies in gold and grey.
-
Green brilliance in the
water, lilac shadows on the sand,
-
Purple skylines turning
orange, blending with the clouds and land.
From the South Coast comes
a calling, calling; calling down the wind,
-
Voices of the murm’ring
wavelets, known only to their kind:
-
From Garie, Wattamolla,
Burning Palms, oh dear! oh me!
-
I hear their voices
calling – I must go forth and see!
-
Roy
Davies
-
1918
-
from "Sing With The Wind"
|