GETTING STUCK

What do you do when creativity just seems to have flown.

I tried doing something silly and found that it opened the gate.

Stuck 

I want to write a poem
but the words won't come.

 I want to sing an aria
but I can't raise a hum.

 I want to play a sonata
but I can't even strum.

 I want to achieve so much
but, right now, I just feel numb.

 
Punululu followed.

                                Purnululu 

Russet domes above an arid grassland,
beehives of sandstone
left by an ancient stream.

Alternating bands of black and ochre
from bacteria
in antiquity.

Vernacular "Karjaganujaru" -
"sand falling away" -
such apt description.

Known only by indigenous owners
for generations
a hidden secret.

Frog, brolga, echidna and cockatoo,
living dreaming tales
from antiquity.

But now public, "World Heritage" listed,
for posterity
and preservation.

"Purnululu" the name we now call you,
traveling from far
across our vast land.

"Purnululu" now the experience
of a pilgrimage
to a wonderland.

A SPECIAL MOMENT AT LAURA

This happened while we were having breakfast on our back verandah at Laura.

We felt so privileged.

First Flight 

This morning
I watched a young sparrow take its first flight.
Venturing from the nest it sat tentatively on a nearby ledge.
while its mother fluttered encouragingly around it,
gently clasping  its back feathers, fluttering her wings
and  then swooping off into the air
before returning to flutter and encourage again.

 At last it happened.
The young bird hopped from the ledge,
fell briefly,
then fluttered its wings, 
flew,
and was gone,
a nestling no longer.

I felt privileged.
In a lifetime of watching,
I could not remember
witnessing
a first flight.

Wondering too
at how we fluttered around our own young,
encouraging their first steps
and eventually the leap of faith
to fly, to soar, to glide ,
as the beautiful adults they have become.

SKETCHING 2016

Not a lot of sketching done but concentrating on accurate representation of different trees.

SKETCHING 2015

Robe

 Darwin - Hidden Valley Tourist Village

Darwin vegetation

SKETCHING - 2014

In 2014 I committed to sketching more, with differing results.

 Darwin waterfront park.

Urrbrae House, Adelaide

Devils Monument, Bruce Peninsula, Ontario

(a particularly difficult challenge and not entirely successfukl.

Devils Peak, Quorn.

OUTSIDE THE LINE

I generally do not write in rhyming verse but sometimes push myself to do so, exploring new poetic forms. Outside the Line is an attempt at writing a Shakespearean Sonnet about Goyder's Line, near which we have often lived.

OUTSIDE THE LINE

The heat sprang up with the first trace of dawn,
rising from the horizon with the sun.
The farmer lifts his eyes to greet the morn
and craves for rain across his barren run.

 A hot wind stirs across the northern plain,
whipping the dust above the grazing herd
of his lean sheep feeding on hand-spread grain
brought from the south at prices quite absurd.

Clouds multiply. The wind veers to the west.
Thunder. Lightning. A fickle hope of rain.
But the farmer knows that just like the rest
the storm will pass, the dry fields will remain.

 He knows tomorrow will be hot and fine.
All his life he's farmed "outside the line".

DESERT SUNRISE

We were on our way back home from a visit to Veronica and family in Darwin when we found ourselves driving through this sunrise between Coober Pedy and Glendambo.

Desert Sunrise 

We'd left our camp early under a full moon.
Swags rolled and stowed on the roof.
Crackling, finger snapping cold outside -
misted windshield inside -
difficult driving.

We drove with an eye to the east,
Waiting for the sunrise.
From the first blush of pink on the horizon
it spread, gently at first then
in an explosion of colour
across the whole sky.

We tumbled out of the car,
scrambled up the nearest sand hill
and stood in awe -
feet in the desert sand,
heads in heaven.

Then it was gone.
Blue sky,
white sunlight,
red desert sand
and the long black ribbon of road
returned as reality.