The Fremantle Press Anthology of Western Australian Poetry

by John Kinsella

  you wouldn’t see —

  the Razor Fish

  See

  what

  I

  mean?

  Kenneth Mackenzie (b.1913 d.1955)

  The Snake

  Withdrawing from the amorous grasses

  from the warm and luscious water

  the snake is soul untouched by both

  nor does the fire of day through which it passes

  mark it or cling. Immaculate navigator

  it carries death within its mouth.

  Soul is the snake that moves at will

  through all the nets of circumstance

  like the wind that nothing stops

  immortal movement in a world held still

  by rigid anchors of intent or chance

  and ropes of fear and stays of hopes.

  It is the source of all dispassion

  the voiceless life above communion

  secret as the spring of wind

  nor does it know the shames of self-confession

  the weakness that enjoys love’s coarse dominion

  or the betrayals of the mind.

  Soul is the snake the cool viator

  sprung from a shadow on the grass

  quick and intractable as breath

  gone as it came like the everlasting water

  reflecting god in immeasurable space —

  and in its mouth it carries death.

  A Robin, Too

  For Douglas Stewart

  There was a drop of scarlet, bright

  in the limbs of the dead tree:

  a scorching colour aloft in light

  where only night should be.

  For I had come from the sleeping tent

  in the very dusk of morning,

  and trod in the frost’s filament

  steps that might help adorning

  that day’s subsequent sunrise

  of light as stern as gold:

  and there I saw the robin’s eyes

  and his breast red in the cold.

  His eyes were brown as the creek bed

  where the earthy water ran,

  and ah, dear friend! his breast was red

  as the breast of a killed man.

  But he was lively, he was gay

  as a thumb’s marionette.

  He was as red as a flower, or day

  that had not flowered yet.

  I stood in the white felt of frost

  blurred where my feet had been,

  and he it was I loved the most

  in all I yet had seen

  of bitter light and bitter cold

  and darkened firing wood.

  The fire lit where the wood was old

  was where the robin stood

  a flame, a flame so red and dear,

  so little and so bright

  that once again the dawn was here

  and the assured light.

  The Awakening

  No glistening cowpat, after all, but the first, worst

  snake of the season, dissatisfied with the sun

  of October, though the branches began to burst

  a month ago, and the fruit has set too soon

  this dry and wind-wrung spring.

  Apart from the thread of cattle-track, in a whorl curled

  outward from its hard and angry little head

  it lay shining deceptively at the world

  that stepped aside with quick and careful heed

  for the shy, savage thing.

  Winter melted slowly from the delicate frail scales

  that sheathed its devil where it lay so sleek and still

  forming a deathly purpose that seldom fails:

  for it has all the rapier-speed and steel

  of death for a heritage,

  and today (I thought) or tomorrow, in the bright light

  with shining topaz eye and wide mouth extended

  it will move; or in the quiet hours of night,

  perhaps, it will move and kill and with the deed

  quench its herpetic rage

  and winter’s fast in one; each will smother the other

  in very repletion, and no more manifest

  this cold malice: it will have become blood-brother

  to warm life by virtue of that feast

  swallowed alive and whole …

  But now it waited until I had looked, gone on

  and returned: it was there still on the starved grass,

  deadly, lovely, painfully absorbing the sun

  into its smooth self-seeking coils of grace,

  into its dark soul.

  Judith Sewing

  The afternoon

  crowding upon the windows with much cheerfulness

  of blue and slanting gold

  will end too soon.

  Judith has sewn the collar on a dress

  that’s excellent though old,

  and, with the needle in her idle fingers,

  sits and stares,

  and out beyond the windows sunlight lingers

  softly on a wall of ancient brick, old-red,

  and lights the leafless almond-tree with gold.

  This might go on for ever.

  I might watch her watching the afternoon,

  idle and thoughtless; and we both might never

  feel the day’s death, the chill of evening,

  the blue of dusk, and the rising of the moon.

  But I will move, and she will turn to me,

  and somewhere, suddenly, a bird will sing

  and it will end too soon.

  Joan Williams (‘Justina Williams’) (b.1914 d.2008)

  No Coward Colour*

  Yellow, honey-smooth, pollen sifted,

  hail-fellow-well-met yellow;

  audacious campaigner, capeweed unloosing

  butterfly armies on fallow.

  Knee-deep in yellow, the earth shouting,

  yellow is not the colour of fear,

  yellow is a loquat in the teeth of the sun,

  yellow the day’s birth and her bier.

  A colour deeper than its sum of self

  it cannot hide its burning eye

  or tell the topaz to withdraw its fire,

  the saffron cup withhold its dye.

  Yellow is no coward colour, only lit

  on candle flame upon the dead —

  let my bitter boy put off his khaki,

  eat with me my golden-freckled bread.

  * After ‘birthday ballot’ of 18-year-olds for war.

  Alec Choate (b.1915 d.2010)

  Words For a Granddaughter

  We have listened,

  too ready to praise her prattle

  as the breakthrough of words,

  too ready to catch her at last rekindling

  the knowing light of our voices

  and those of astonished strangers.

  Of words indeed is the beginning.

  Words are the greatest of all our gifts.

  At this moment she sits

  in her full scale world of our home’s small garden,

  and seeing her jilt without warning

  her playthings onto the lawn,

  I follow the rush of her eyes

  to the wattle bird

  as it grips the hibiscus flower,

  bending about like a yachtsman playing a sail,

  or perhaps to the caterpillar

  piling then laying its wildcat fur

  up a leaf‘s sheer slide, or to the cabbage moth

  blowing about like a star of cloth.

  There are no words

  to span the spell I see in her eyes.

  Speechless with wonder

  before she has learned to speak,

  her lips are parted petals themselves

  with no more sound

  than the crimson trumpet the bird has found.

  And I wish her many like moments of magic

  when, however her life becomes patterned

  with words,
their grace and their garbage,

  this look is her only answer

  and she cannot speak.

  Dingo

  He runs ahead, hedged in by spinifex,

  snared by its height he is too young to clear,

  dribbling his strength out on the track

  where our wheels snarl and worry at his heels.

  Vermin is said, and we could ponder this

  around a campfire, but here our chase has heart

  in our horizon’s values

  to brake back from him should our tyres once touch.

  so fragile and so madly straight, the track

  we clutch as our life’s thread

  he runs on as a thread of death,

  looking for some quick gap in the green mesh,

  a mouth, a tongue of sand, to lick him off.

  And there it is at last, and he skids through,

  spinning around to stand and stare

  as if he knows we dare not follow.

  we slow down, watching, noting how suddenly

  the morning shimmers with our voices

  and how we breathe a little easier

  as so does he.

  Now that their fright has melted,

  his eyes slant with a question,

  a wry scan that tries to niche us in his scheme of wildlife,

  the world he knows and which we do not share.

  Our tyres move on, he bristles at the sound,

  slips past some smaller clumps of spinifex

  and goes from us, low-shouldered, at a trot.

  Jack Davis (b.1917 d.2000)

  Rottnest

  These rocks placed here by man

  to form a bridgewater

  The sea’s age typified

  by algae clinging to the stone

  The Indian Ocean limitless

  breathing might and power

  even on this day of calm

  I look across at Rottnest

  in the far off haze

  where my people

  breathed their last sigh

  for home the mainland

  to them the distant blue

  What did they do

  but stand within the paths

  of cloven hooves

  Their only crime

  to fight for what was rightly theirs

  To them the island was a place of souls

  departed down through

  eons of time but by a savage twist of fate

  No flight of soul for them

  But chained they waited

  for their lot’s conclusion

  to be forever part of

  the island of the dead

  Forest Giant

  You have stood there for centuries

  arms gaunt reaching for the sky

  your roots in cadence

  with the heart beat of the soil

  High on the hill, you missed

  the faller’s ace and saw

  But they destroyed the others

  down the slope

  and on the valley floor

  Now you and I

  bleed in sorrow and in silence

  for what once had been

  while the rapists still

  stride across

  and desecrate the land

  Red Robin

  Little robin quite still

  inoffensive almost pensive

  free of heart and will

  But you have your enemies so take care and I can tell

  you also have to keep an eye

  upon the ground as well

  Now chooditj that’s the native cat

  has a diet of meat

  and tiny fledglings

  are to him a treat

  Now butcher bird with cruel beak

  and butcher is his name

  him and chooditj are alike

  they have a diet the same

  So hide your home my little one

  where prickle bushes grow

  and you can keep a watch above

  and I’ll watch from below

  Mining Company’s Hymn

  The Government is my shepherd,

  I shall not want.

  They let me search in the Aboriginal reserves

  which leads me to many riches

  for taxation sake.

  Though I wallow in the valley of wealth I will fear no weevil

  because my money is safe in the bank

  vaults of the land,

  and my Government will always comfort me.

  They will always protect me,

  from the Aborigines there and claims there.

  So I can then take wealth whenever I have a need to

  and my bank account will grow even more.

  Oh! Surely wealth and materialism will shorten the

  days of my life, but I will dwell safely protected

  by Government for ever.

  John Pat

  John Pat was a 16-year-old Aboriginal boy who died of head injuries alleged to have been caused in a disturbance between police and Aborigines in Roebourne, WA, in 1983. Four police were charged with manslaughter over the incident. They were acquitted.

  Write of life

  the pious said

  forget the past

  the past is dead.

  But all I see

  in front of me

  is a concrete floor

  a cell door

  and John Pat.

  Agh! tear out the page

  forget his age

  thin skull they cried

  that’s why he died!

  But I can’t forget

  the silhouette

  of a concrete floor

  a cell door

  and John Pat.

  The end product

  of Guddia law

  is a viaduct

  for fang and claw,

  and a place to dwell

  like Roebourne’s hell

  of a concrete floor

  a cell door

  and John Pat.

  He’s there — where?

  there in their minds now

  deep within,

  there to prance

  a sidelong glance

  a silly grin

  to remind them all

  of a Guddia wall

  a concrete floor

  a cell door

  and John Pat.

  Guddia: Kimberley term for white man

  The First-born

  Where are my first-born, said the brown land, sighing;

  They came out of my womb long, long ago.

  They were formed of my dust — why, why are they crying

  And the light of their being barely aglow?

  I strain my ears for the sound of their laughter.

  Where are the laws and the legends I gave?

  Tell me what happened, you whom I bore after.

  Now only their spirits dwell in the caves.

  You are silent, you cringe from replying.

  A question is there, like a blow on the face.

  The answer is there when I look at the dying,

  At the death and neglect of my dark proud race.

  Wolfe Fairbridge (b.1918 d.1950)

  Consecration of the House

  House, you are done …

  And now before

  The high contracting parties take

  Final possession, let us stand

  Silent for this occasion at the door,

  Who here a lifelong compact make:

  That you were not for trading planned,

  Since barter wears the object poor,

  But are henceforth our living stake

  — And hereunto we set our hand.

  Be over us, be strong, be sure.

  You may not keep from world alarms,

  But from the daily wind and rain

  Of guessed, or real, or of imagined wrong

  Shadow us between your arms;

  Be our sincere affection, and maintain

  A corner
here for art and song;

  Yet no mere image of benumbing calms,

  But a bold premiss, where the mind may gain

  Purchase for adventurous journeys long.

  Be round us, and protect from harms.

  A roof well timbered, hollow walls

  Where the damp creep never comes,

  Kiln-hardened joists no worm can bore;

  Low sills where early daylight falls

  Beneath wide eaves against the summer suns;

  Huge cupboards, where a child might store

  Surfeit of treasures; and no cramping halls,

  But spacious and proportioned rooms;

  A single, poured foundation, perfect to the core.

  Be our security against all calls.

  Six orange trees, a lemon, and a passion vine.

  All the lush living that endears

  A home be yours: some asters for a show,

  And roses by the wall to climb,

  Hydrangeas fat as cauliflowers.

  We who (how arduously!) have watched you grow,

  We feel you in the very soil; and time

  Shall tie your flesh with ours, your piers

  And pipes intestinal, that anchor you below.

  Be through us, and prevent our fears.

  Your windows face the north: the sun

  At four o’clock leaps in;

  By breakfast-time has swung so high

  We lose him; till upon his downward run,

  Swollen and yellow as a mandarin,

  We catch his amber from the western sky.

  Then when the night’s dark web is spun,

  Let your glass like a stationary comet gleam,

  And lantern to our light supply.

  Be our sure welcome, and a wakeful beam.

  Though we designed and built you, we

  Will not outlive what we have done.

  And if our children here succeed,

  Our gain is now, and yours. Let this mortar be

  Consecrate to death — a place where one

  Gladly might wither to his glowing seed.

  We serve you then in all humility

  Who serve us, and by our sweat were won

  When we had most need.

  Give us the obligations that make free.

  House, you are done … And nevermore

  So painted, new, so arrogantly clean;

  The tang of lime, the horrid clang

  Of footsteps on the naked floor

  Will fade to a serene

  Patina of sounds and smells that hang

  Like the reverberations of a shore

  Of history: a hive where love has been,