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I
I’d forgotten silence,
assaulted as I always am by ocean
relentless in its rolling.
I sit here now
Above desert red and olive green.
Quartz glints and sparkles.
Immensity invades my heart
and silence.
II
I sit in silence writing.
A crow accosts me,
Piercing me with white-rimmed stare,
black feathers ruffled by the intermittent wind.
Perched on sharp rocks
she quarks her crow cry,
lazy, inconsequential.
Glides off above my head
wings panting
pale vee contained by darker gleam.
Rides the sky as eagles do,
her crow-cry mocking now,
deriding all that’s tied to earth.
III
Humbled by the judgement of the crow
I shrivel.
Until desert colours glow again,
quartz glints
and silence reinflates me.
For six years in the 1990s I lived in Broken Hill, which became my second heart-place. Then I moved to the coast, and it was twelve years before I returned to the centre. This poem was written in the flora and fauna sanctuary about 10km out of town during that return visit. Since I was living in the cottage set aside for visiting writers, I thought I’d better write.
The poem went through one revision a few years ago, in discussion with a poetry-writing friend. On Tuesday, I submitted it to further scrutiny and revisions at a poetry writing group in Cobargo, where thoughtful suggestions and generous approval encouraged me to post it here.
Madhu said:
Beautiful descriptive verses Meg! Very evocative of your love for that stunning, desert landscape. I echo Gilly’s comment…you should absolutely write more poetry. And publish them without any hesitation. -)
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morselsandscraps said:
Thanks for encouragement, Madhu. I need head space for this sort of writing – I actually sat down looking out over the desert and wrote this.
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Paula said:
lazy, inconsequential 🙂 I tend to think of them this way too. I am no authority on poetry, but I like the imagery in your poem, and I love these two photos. (I hope you don’t tend to see me as lazy for my mistake with the name).
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morselsandscraps said:
Never lazy, my dear. After all, you typed an extra two letters! Thank you for praise – from you, it’s worth having.
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Paula said:
I am now really scare about names – I personally don’t like nicks and abbreviations, and I know at the bottom of my head you are Margaret though I rarely see people here address you that way. I had a scare with M-R too, she hates being called Margaret so I banned that name from my vocabulary here. I know people are sensitive about names, and I am anything but superficial and I am sorry. I think this blogging business is getting a bit too much for me.
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morselsandscraps said:
Please please please don’t stop blogging! Take a rest, but my life would be so much poorer without your posts. As for names, my birth name is Margaret, and my absolutely preferred name is Meg – my driver’s licence is the only document that insists on Margaret. And don’t be scared: I hope I’m not being hard to get on with. Stay peaceful, my dear, and stay blogging!
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Paula said:
Ok, as far as I know now, I am better of forgetting about the name Margaret or Megan 😀 I have one Meg and one M-R. good – not to hard to remember 😉 I am just exhausted, and stressed out – I am a foolish thing that takes everything to heart and wants everything to be superb – and we are far from being superb. Thank you for encouragement. I will be OK, once I finish my Monday this week. Hugs
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pommepal said:
Your poem has captured the stillness of the Australian desert Meg and that lovely descriptive phrase of the wings panting, we have lots of crows around here and that is the exact sound their wings make. I have not been to Broken Hill, yet, it is right up there at the top of my list. Maybe 2015 will be the year I make it.
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morselsandscraps said:
I was so lucky to live in Broken Hill. I seem to manage to live in other people’s holiday destinations! Go, and I can return vicariously with your eye.
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pommepal said:
Still working on where to go next year, the world is our oyster down under…
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restlessjo said:
What a treat, Meg! ‘She quarks her crow cry…wings panting’ – I love it! You recreate the scene so vividly and then there’s the photo as proof! 🙂 Wonderful- we need more!
And can I say thank you for my unexpected email? I was being cheeky but I love your choices. Will get around to replying this weekend some time. Take care 🙂
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Lucid Gypsy said:
Yes please write more poetry, this is beautiful moving and evocative. I haven’t been to Australia but I love desert and it takes me to the Thar where the silence surrounded me. I wish I had wrote this.
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morselsandscraps said:
Thank you Gilly. What I write is evocative for me: I sometimes wonder if it works for other people. Your “silence with birdsong” haiku said something to me about my desert experience. My real desert experience was towards Libya beyond Siwa in Egypt: I envy you the Thar.
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Suzanne said:
I love this poem. How wonderful to live in Broken Hill so long. I have visited the sanctuary you speak of. It is one of the most wonderful places I’ve ever been. The desert is my second home too and I long to return to it for a visit – hopefully next year. Your post has inspired to nurture the dream of getting there.
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morselsandscraps said:
I was very lucky to live there. It was the first time I’d really lived alone, and it was rich in self-discovery as well as the discovery of the desert landscape. I was there when the sculptures were being created – I even made a chisel mark in one of them. I hope you get your desert-wish.
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Suzanne said:
I love those sculptures. What a wonderful feeling it must have been to have been part of their creation. As for me – my goal is Flinders Ranges next May or is not then, September. 🙂
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morselsandscraps said:
I used to go out to the site early in the morning. Usually some hardy sculptors were at work – there was some pretty heavy partying happening too. I loved the music of their tapping, and one morning one of them said “Like a go?” Only time I’ve used a chisel, except briefly to trim veneer on bookshelves.
Flinders are beautiful. Have you been there? Walking towards St Mary Peak and then across the caldera was one of the few 20km walks of my life, and worth every ache. I didn’t go to the peak.
May you reach your Flinders goal.
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Suzanne said:
No, I’ve never made it to the Flinders Ranges. It’s been a goal for decades. Now it’s become a burning ambition. 🙂 Your stories of Broken Hill make me want to get up that way again too. It is incredible country.
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Rosemary Barnard said:
Love this. The spareness of the words and their rhythm help bring the desert experience to life. And then the theme: it is through the harsh cry of the crow and her derisive flight that one really experiences silence and maybe greater awareness of who one is and one’s place in the world. Write more poetry Meg.
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morselsandscraps said:
Thank you, my ever-so-supportive friend. I like your reading. Posting this was a great chance to go back to images of BH.
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