Reading the (in)land
Out back of the air bnb
you smell petrichor
on a tract of land
at the edge of the mown,
squinting at three native grasses.
You can’t look them up
because there’s no internet access
where you are.
The field of blue stretches
above a mottle of rain-clouds,
a dome over stock.
Branches of white cockatoos
scream across this undulating
regenerative farm land
in the Wymah Valley.
Driza-bone and Akubra,
literate in this landscape,
read The Land. You, however,
see this windy paddock
as bisected by metal sticks,
strands of rusty gate, wire fences,
solar array, a corrugated iron tank.
On the coast you always
sought sea-blue skyscapes,
rock pools, wet
Sclerophyll forests.
Once inland, you don’t
notice the inland ridges
tho’ they’ve been here forever.
When you do finally pause and
take in the ragged outcrops,
your eye-balls,
more accustomed to the coast,
now follow the ancient rocky faces
and you connect to the country
for the first time.
Notes
Poetry for the Planet: An Anthology of Imagined Futures edited by Julia Kaylock and Denise O’Hagan and published by Litoria Press is now available from your favourite bookshop. All proceeds directed to the Conservation Foundation.
The photo above shows my very rough sketch of ‘this windy paddock’.
Acknowledgement
Thank you to esteemed member of Riparian, Dotti Simmons, for encouraging me to contribute to this anthology.
Riparian 