MORE BUSH POEMS

The old mail road
leaving the modern, sealed
Stuart Highway -
no signage,
just an old tyre still.


         








  Old Mail Road 

Drive slow or you’ll miss it
There’s an old campfire,
no marker, no sign post,
just an old truck tyre.

Forty long miles of plain
with little change,
some low hills on the horizon
with a gap in the range.

You wind through that gap.
Drop well back through the gears.
You’re on rocks now, a creek bed
that’s been dry for years.

More miles to a boundary fence,
a windmill, a gate,
a stockyard, some cattle,
a homestead, a mate.

   APARA 

Around
behind the range
is Apara,
a place
of rocks
and reeds
and tall river gums,
different
from the red
spinifex covered
plain.

Nyaratja
took us there
one day,
showed us
the deep
dark hole
in the reeds
where Wanampi
the creative
water serpent
lived.

Told us
a story,
ancient
yet living,
timeless
yet dated,
for life
moves on
cultures
change
develop
decay.

Nearby
an ancient tree
bears
the scar
cut by
explorers,
a rock face
scratchings
by pioneers
watering
stock.

And so
the sacred
is profaned,
the stories
are forgotten,
the songs
go unsung,
progress
prevails
something
dies.

At Apara in 1970.