#874 - on the picnic rocks

 

27.v.22

874 

3.147

on the picnic rocks 

ekphrastic for Streeton’s 1895 ‘Cremorne’ 

in the Hinton Collection at NERAM

full light tells the season 

these ships of the harbour vestigial

as if fata morgana come round 

every gown a ghost here

picture of the gone come floating 

then to now 

as far from the town 

as the town 

from the world 

here on another shore 

of the bush

where cave painters

come from their lair 

to catch a stolid sort of floating 

almost motionless gentility 

it’s as if any effort 

could unsabbath 

the scene

you can’t see the city 

that will come 

though everybody knows 

see the breeze catching 

trees of a lean 

this is a day to sail

now no spears 

now no canoes 

other ghosts are further down

see here, in a kind of shorthand

complexities of foliage 

complexities of sky