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