#413 - the place in mind

 

13.ii.21

413

2.44

the place in mind

at Arbaro, Markwell via Bulahdelah

on the unceded land of the Worimi

 

for the unknown artist, in time to be

words beginning the Year of the Golden Ox

 

 

is where I am

let me take you …

   stewardly

by the whipbird’s way

 

from out of focus first

cause sleep

and wake to play

in autumn already

(is it bad luck to say?)

 

country of distances, close calls

always needs a haircut

(unless deep in the drought)

 

come

through the old cow house beginning

in the rain

grown over

all do, unend

fired a chimney there

told winters too

now in black eyes Susan still

 

come later to the shrine

(the fifties spun, still black and white

a dance floor and what parents do)

 

friends welcome

come insects dare

at flesh, fly, climb

we have the spray

(and more than one)

what’s in the cupboard, fridge?

no, later

see this trail on the post here?

 

ants up

bats in the walls

where’s python?

and with Her Highness Antechinus

pigeons to the roof

piss off!

 

come on, you’ll need

stick for the webs

wave about

or let me go ahead

still better look down and where we’re going

cause lizard, red bellies, funnel webs, browns

I wouldn’t go barefoot, not a Legge

 

here’s hello Vera

(good for scrapes and cuts)

and then a tree called breakfast

or will be, come March

the ancient lemonade!

whom certain birds have much abused

though made more of mulberry

 

not pointing fingers but it was either

channel bill or bowerbugger

took out that window in the dairy

Peter Jordan and I put in (late eighties)

 

you don’t see that anymore

and for reasons I have just explained

 

one has to work to see what’s here

trowel and fork it, handy machete

best if you wear gloves, I would

and boil the water too

cause giardia once a long way back

can’t be too careful though

 

keep up!

we make the track by walking here

come by the tower

you could forget

(condemned, unsafe, much mossed

now lichen licked)

I mean walk past … once there was a bath in there

a solar panel somewhere hopeful

down by the patch now overgrowing

it needs some lotus or are they lilies?

some smartypants will know                

 

islands of ocean

and fresh clouds to call

 

flutterbyes and petalfalls

kookas sat up wires

for a giggle

and breezeless then

so listen

 

be numinous here, phenomena

(yes, that was instruction)

 

a shirt off into the book

I have a pile of years around

to tell one day the fire 

not now

 

now’s brim

and gumboot at the ready

squelch

 

go by the dell

all overhung

with friend and foe

and web again

though we’ve just passed

those eight-leg buggers build!

 

I call it all garden

(the management of least worst

Illusion of the bush-as-ours)

 

over the bridge and up the rise

(that crossing once was fallen timber

and once it was gum tree)

 

see the extra little pond put in

the dell pond

and some skies in it

treetops and

 

so much depends upon the wings

delve over under

sometimes silent too

 

the Piggery was bridge itself back in the day

the Deep Creek bridge

oh sixty seventy years now

 

and there was a little machinery shed where Emma

not next door but over, learned to smoke

(a precious skill back in the barefoot days

… this was the way to the schoolhouse

and this was the way back home)

 

piggery’s where some fine product goes

from the solar fanned composting

see how the coleus comes on

and several of geranium

 

terrific view from the dunny too

when no one’s much around

lines on the floor

and the pocket shelves

plenty of people to read

 

tiny and tinier? where would you kip?

some nights the choice is yours

birds wake you, curtains or no

 

past Shrek Swamp which no longer is

and so there are reflections

leaves either side of the mirror

 

here in the Zone

(place of strangers now friends)

you will find the unintended pumpkins

(only kind that ever work)

the Balinese bathroom

the Purcell gardens now pretty well under 

but never say never they say

 

did I mention the Gallery?

full of books now, could use a good sweep

and power off today for the grey

unless you’d like the space

in which case…

 

behind that kitchen the fernery self-fending

creek down there

hear it?

 

see, where we have the creek path renewed?

that was Mick with tractor, whom we shall soon

require again

(locals love machinery and I’ll stick with my words)

 

lets me closer to

the bloody lantana

wish I had mattocks for hands and feet

let’s not mention privet

and there are others too

low opportunists

the so-called farmer’s friends … sundry curses

 

but one doesn’t go round just to work up a sweat

thinking of how that is done

 

no, no, take breath

and we’ll come to the rose of proverbial whiff

and ping pong perhaps

in honour of dad

(though so many aspects he might not approve

… still, started himself on the dining room table)

 

I this the Village of Distraction?

 

subtle sway up in the treetops

and oops, there goes the ball

 

come wallabies, whom we admire

rotate the ears, attentions

I’m watching you watching  

we won’t grudge

hop off

and round

crouch, wait

was that grass delicious?

 

past big pond too, on studio shores

where the overflow is overgrown

 

more shades of green than we have heights

edible things have been known to grow

… though mainly we missed out

 

fold each inside our others

by pumpkin in weed patch

spent summer

Kerri’s scarecrow under too

all this next to the transpiration

needs a mowing too

 

but

come to my music box

(lovely Desmond light … subject

of arguments, ‘tradie’ and ‘artist’)

time for a jam before dinner?

and light a coil to honour the mozzies …

squeeze chords from strings and keys

a beer? or name your tipple

and make my wasted marks go round

some days play like St Francis

to anyone…

 

come! come!

 

the place trails off like conversation

 

onto the shedbrary then

for games and ponder

you know schoelbak shove h’apenny?

we could just play pool

 

then upstairs perhaps for snooze

so many stories to get gone with

and then there’s your own dreams to do

 

it’s everything here

and even time

though never seems that way

and less so over

 

all these benches for sitting

did you even consider?

who can fit that in?

but I guess we could use some more

… tools and timber

 

rule is – if you spend more time on

cleaning a chair than in it

well, never mind…

 

though empires range elsewhere

wars as well, famines, plagues, what-have-you

here I am home in my where-else? head

 

take rounds

and yes, let’s go again

or ping pong inside outside then?

there’s still light… on these forever days

or swim?

 

you, whoever

in time to be

may live this

at your leisure

(and let’s hope a world still is

but otherwise who’d reading?)

should know my moment

as I tell it

know

 

this is my paradise of

special anyone’s place

here sing and dance

we, the unseen

in all the perfect months

and even when I’m home, go there

 

this is the place in mind