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Poem: Dancing on the Farm

Adolescence with an Australian farming backdrop during the 1940s and ’50s is recalled in this week’s Poet’s Corner contribution from Katherine Gallagher, who now lives in London.

Dancing on the Farm

I wanted to dance with my father,
dance fast over dirt tracks,
dance full-flight across creeks;
breeze past the watching crows,
surprise every sheep and cow:

jazz-waltz – foxtrot – jive –
to find some joie-de-vivre
that seemed to pass him by.

At my first bush dance,
he pulled me to my feet, saved me
from being a wallflower:
his way to say caring.

He was master of the slow waltz:
I’d seen his cool toe-balancing,
the grace of it, guiding my mother
into circles of Lehar and Strauss.
But the foxtrot…
Too fast, he shrugged, I’m past it.

I didn’t believe him, standing there on the edge
of my dream with his face slightly pained –
as if giving bad news
and the gentle side of him spoke:
a look that said he was vulnerable,

my Dad, opened up,
the weight of days holding his feet
to the boards.

Katherine Gallagher was born in the Victorian Goldfields town of Maldon and grew up on a farm in the nearby Eastville district, where she attended a one-teacher school. She gained her BA and Diploma of Education from Melbourne University, and left Australia in 1969, moving first to London, then Paris, where she taught English. She returned to London in 1979, where she has lived since. Gallagher retains strong connections to Australia, as “an Australian poet resident in the UK”. Among her publications have been eight collections of poetry, published in both the UK and Australia, and her translations of French poet Jean-Jacques Celly. Among her awards have been an Australian Literature Board Fellowship in 1978, a Royal Literary Fund Award in 2000, and a London Society of Authors’ Foundation Award in 2008. Gallagher is active in poetry mentoring in London, including at the Torriano Meeting House, and she can be found at www.katherine-gallagher.com.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. A poetry book will be awarded to each contributor.

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