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Poem: Broken

Acknowledgement of County in a changed landscape inspires this week’s Poet’s Corner thoughts from Russ Talbot.

Jul 26, 2017, updated Jul 26, 2017

Broken

In Glanville
an unexpected park.

Sited on a traditional Kaurna meeting place
it is an oasis of soul in an empty place.

Hidden by indifference
a bridge flying overhead,
acres of clone apartments,
the steady drone of traffic and rumble of trucks,
a road crew jackhammering the Causeway.

Yet here,
here is another world.

Suddenly I’m ‘there’.
It is dusk
Still.
Insects click
and frogs pobblebonk.
The noise and life of the wetlands about them,
the Glanville Kaurna Clan sit around their campsite.
Sharing stories
Facing their ancestors
Their backs to the future that spreads out before them.
Unknowable.
Undreamt.

In this park there is a sculpture.
A rock, sundered.
Broken.

But still there,
Just as substantial.

And it strikes me that this is no small thing.

To endure.
To remain, to reclaim a place
in the world ...

This is no small thing.

I understand who this is for.
This sculpture speaks to the Kaurna people, it’s not about me.
But I overhear.

For I too am broken
but endure.

And I marvel at Artists.
Who through an assembled crowd
can notice a cloak of invisibility
and with a quiet nod say
‘I see you mate’.

Russ Talbot was one of Poet’s Corner’s original contributors in its ‘Independent Weekly’ print days. He discovered the pleasure of writing after his life changed due to Acquired Brain Injury as the result of a brain tumour. Russ describes his life as two lives, one prior to ABI, and one afterwards. In the first he obtained degrees in computing and management, and in the second a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Communication. He is a member of the Adelaide Poetica poetry group, has published poems in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and US, and last year released the chapbook collection ‘Things That Make Your Heart Beat’ through the Ginninderra Press Picaro Poets series. His book of prose, ‘Just A Bit Wobbly’, will be published by Ginninderra later this year.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.
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