Saturday, March 31, 2018

Kit Kelen #820 - first easter (a legend of ourselves)

820
first easter
(a legend of ourselves)

damp between downpours
hardly here
nothing could be too rough

doorless and windowless
valley all view

you could tell the weather coming
it was already here
none of it in the bones yet

you had to watch and wait
and the road would see us
two newchums
in their Greenacres struggle
Sydney, now the bush
no tree to hide behind

we'd yet to dig a dam

it was all a bit like stepping ashore
curious either way

we who had no one in the ground
were yet to be not given Schultz's calendar
for whom-you'd-gone-to-school with

that postmaster, whose son would punch him out
and so deservedly it seems
was still to make first snide remark

yet we had come within foretelling

begin with the floor
find fire
strike up in the hearth
hope smoke's for a chimney

goldtops told the cows that were
were we even gumbooted yet?

no need to let the day in
there was nothing to turn on
no tap
when birds first came to see

but you could stick in the mud

the work of white ants
all still stood
just as it does today

we discovered bucket
and rope
the well was full
and filling

shower in the bag in the creek
all gone to canvas now

were we much bitten?
no one remembers

there had been griefs here
we couldn't know
(turns of malice, kindness too
and anger got as far as spite)

remember the night
the power came on
and light cast yellow
past our dreams
into the bush
forever and ever

but that would all be months yet
and that's another story

love was all our singing here
when stars came out we shone

by kero and by firelit
just past daylight saving

stones of the place must tell
of all the clouds that fell to water

and having not been swept away

thirty years now
half a life
we couldn't have known then

decided to stay
still roughing it to this very day

worthy of birds
it was and is

and a now-and-then sun
knew where to shine
knows

it was all out of endings
no one could know
we got started here


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