20. THE BARE HILLS OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA AND WINNININNIE CREEK STONES
i
these mainstream stones from winnininnie creek are ongoing,
caught in the current of a seasonal creek to be carried away,
like the road above the bridge at winnininnie creek,
how it caught the cars, trucks and caravans and carried them off,
down through those bare hills of south australia in the bare month of june,
like the sun was caught sinking down beneath the bare hills,
the sky was opaline, it was quietly violet as the shadows touched down in gullies,
one bare hill leaning against the other and moving into the other,
the winter-green eyes of grazing kangaroos shone upon,
were looking back up from the shadows into those bare winter hills of south australia,
with the stone cottage ruins crumbling like granite, spilling and rolling,
the slow ricochet of rock upon rock, of hill upon sun of sun upon hill,
orange rocks beginning to contract and split so frosts can fill the spaces inbetween,
feet ache from inside the car the fingers snap frozen,
the sheep are running down the hills, they are trying to outrun the frost
newly shorn, cut to the bare skin and stamped with the red number they try to outrun
the frost, they reach one end of the paddock and then they run back again,
they scatter like termites, alight with the cold
ii
trees dot the distant hills, lit up into silhouette by sunset, swept away into chill of dusk,
the next morning they have come back into colour from the night they were swept into,
those bare hills are exposed, naked, vulnerable, begging for the thickest frost, the coldest nights,
they are turned into the ground with the ice on their bald backs, bare hills,
they are simply bare hills with the shadows of evening creeping into them,
falling gently into their dry old gullies, smooth with what passes across them,
the hills are giant smooth stones beneath the sky, they are a stage on which to run your story,
like the water-polished elongated pebbles of winnininnie creek,
the well worn-rocks of the dry creek bed that float face up in the palm,
then turn shyly on their sides, to fall back through the fingers of your hands, to join the other stones,
you can feel the current through the stones,
the stones are flowing, after the river has dried up, the stones are waiting for flow,
stones of action and reposition, saying 'we progress and relocate',
the stones are telling your fingers and your feelings about the currents in a land
that seemed so still, that the frost could bite it until it fell unconscious, hypothermic,
the river stones are telling you the activity of the landscape, about its trend, mood and tendency,
this place is taking course, is taking a moving picture of itself
iii
the red sandy creek beds are lived in by river red gums out near broken hill,
along the barrier highway, the mulga parrot is flying smooth and low,
parrots, galahs, a mallee ringneck, john found the feathers in rocks from the river bed,
blues, reds, greens, yellow clays, bird-rich remnants, birds that had flown away downriver
across the round creek stones, brighter with the water flowing over them,
we each hold round rocks with others floating on them in the left palm,
i can feel the creek flowing through stone, long after its white water has dried up,
the stones echo its flow, they are miniature aboriginal implements, of unknown origin,
the shape of them and how they fit in the palm, smoothed by the river water then the sand,
blasting along the creek bed, or pushed forward by the fluoro-green feathers of a
mulga parrot flying low, along this one stone, which is a deep orange day closing
iv
bare hills with evening shadows creeping into them, falling gently into their dry old ridges,
i held the round creek stones in my shirt like an apron pocket opening, a twig collector,
i held the old walnut pods in the rainforest of the atherton tablelands in the same way
and felt the power of the walnut trees, growing up towards the sun inside the shell of the
abandoned pod, so that when the pod dropped down into the mulch on the forest floor,
to be eaten up by the ground, it would send its old remembered message of pushing up,
back into the walnut tree, to remind it of its firm struggle for sunlight, bright parrot and sky,
it had been a good day of bird feathers and smooth river stones, one to put the world at ease,
the shadow of the e.h. holden is travelling beside us, up with the sunset lighting up the grass,
photographers of the outback always try to brighten everything up, using filters, colour lenses
but this has been bright enough, our faces have turned warm navel orange with the sunset |
