Poems: from Flinders Ranges to the Limestone Coast
In today’s Poet’s Corner, Marilyn Linn contributes two contrasting views of South Australia’s landscape.
Photo: Stefan Fisher / flickr
An Ancient Land
Flinders Ranges, South Australia
Devil winds whip saltbush flats
flick crumbled mortar specks
from deserted chimneys of futile early settlements.
Red, russet, brown and beige colours shift and slide
down cliff faces, skip across intermittent flatlands.
Summer heat parches creeks and grass.
Welcome rain refreshes the land, makes false promises.
Razorback ridges protrude through deep gorges,
defying all but wedge-tail eagles.
Ravens, hawks and myriad small birds gorge on locusts.
Mirages above road deceive entranced travellers.
Kangaroos and emus graze, sating hunger,
occasionally cross a road in search of greener pastures.
Some never reach the promised grasses.
Grateful flowing creeks reflect ancient river red gums.
Peace infiltrates shadow, shifts with the sun.
Jagged mountain and rolling plain,
hold Sacred Dreaming stories
of the Adnyamathanha people.
Nora Creina
Lakes Robe, St Clair, Eliza and George,
Limestone Coast, South Australia
Glaring white
gravel road
dips and dives ahead
black cows to the left
brown cows to the right
ever-watchful hawks
hover overhead
a hundred
or more sheep
huddle under an umbrella
of ti-tree
clumps of melaleucas
acacia and casuarinas
march along each side
of the road
white dust temporarily
blurs our vision
as another
traveller
passes by.
Marilyn Linn is a retired school teacher who enjoys writing, her family, and travel that has taken her to many places worldwide. In Adelaide she is a member of the Seaside Writers’ Group, Marion Writers’ Group, Tramsend Poetry Group, and the Japanese genre haiku group Bindii. Her poetry and prose has appeared in anthologies and magazines in Australia, New Zealand, the US and Japan. She has received a number of awards and commendations, and in December 2016 published her volume of selected memoirs, Rainbow After the Storm.
