In this week’s Poet’s Corner, Adelaide pastor Bryce Clark finds a quiet beauty amid the wide open landscape of the desert.
A drive thru the desert
for a poem about nothing
Twisted trees, burnt out cars; wide expanse of – nothing.
Grasses starved for water, creek beds powder-dry.
Decades of dedicated labour – for nothing.
Here in the wide brown land we search for green oasis.
We look for grassy knolls with squinted eyes
and broad-brimmed hats but all we find is – nothing.
We see the camels; plundering brutes.
Bemoan the damage done by cows.
We hear the dingoes’ woeful cry
and still we drive for hours with only more of – nothing.
No pollution in the air. No plastic on the ground.
No concrete to dehydrate the sky
nor hoodlums drinking anger down.
We’re free to travel this unimagined vastness of the land.
So hard to keep the mind alert;
one small prickle bush, hot red stone and dirt.
prickle bush hot red stone and dirt.
There’s gibber plains, dead grass and sky
and there, where all above meets earth below,
mirage shimmers and sun a-glow
time and distance fuse hour on hour the same.
And shallow we conclude – there’s nothing.
No uncontrolled kids, screeching brakes,
no blasting horns or fire trucks.
No traffic jams or taxi ranks. No bitumen multiplied heat,
purse snatchers, shop thieves or greedy banks – nothing.
Twisted trees stand tall through time, river beds unchanged.
The homes of roos, perentie and soft brown dove.
The finch has even colonized.
As brilliant parrots screech the evening chimes
ignorance suggests – there’s nothing.
But hesitate within this silence and look some more.
Banana, tomato, sultana bushes; taste them all.
Potato, honey, sugar fluff in store.
There’s grubs in trees and mulga leaves.
The sand dune soaks and bandicoots.
The painted landscapes all around.
Artwork permanently on the ground.
Reds and yellows, olive greens.
With shades and hues of desert scenes.
It’s time to think again and see
that “nothing here” is beauty, silent, grand and free.
The Rev Bryce Clark is parish pastor for the Ferryden Park Lutheran Church and Aboriginal Lutheran Fellowship of Greater Adelaide. He is the author of various book reviews and study papers about Aboriginal history since colonisation in South Australia in 1836, and was the researcher for the Max Hart book A Story of Fire: Continued. Clark’s ministry to the Aboriginal people for more than 35 years, has taken him to all states of Australia, meeting with many communities and their leaders.
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.
