The Finke River
If you want to glimpse the wakening of the world, and marvel how time,
with intent and intensity, has gouged from gorges
these ages and colours in narratives of magnificence,
then follow the Finke, the oldest river on earth.
It begins in the seasonal rains of February and March
with the quicksilver leap of nameless little creeks
from the granite flanks and shoulders of the west MacDonnell Ranges
to catchment fringed with mountain, and this escape.
Glen Helen and other Gorges cope; they always have,
as weathered brutalities of ruthless beauty.
And Hermannsburg will remind you of something seen in youth:
a watercolour in a relative's living room.
And Palm Valley, tribute and tributary to the Finke,
is a walk of disbelief through persuasive proof
of Cycad, Palm and Tea-tree, River Red and Ghost Gum.
I'd seen, but not connected them, before.
Now I can, like a doctor examining an X-ray
of a backbone - for such it is - and making report.
Published in AnniVersaries (Brandl & Schlesinger, 1998).
Monsoon
Tradition says four. The aborigines say six.
I say that two seasons - The Dry and The Wet -
divide and distinguish the year and the top end of Australia,
for when winds forsake the east and veer northwest
to gather water and any stray disturbances
out of the Indian Ocean, the monsoon's begun.
The most immediate feeling is that of relief, in coolness,
for the Turkish bath which passes for spring is finished.
If you stay, you either love or long accept
cathedral clouds with traceries of lightning;
the thunder which stops - or starts - every conversation;
the deluge, blind and hysterical for weeks;
the stop for an hour of sunshine and smiling expanses of silver,
steam and quick excursions for necessities.
If you go, you'll know that the time to return to Darwin,
a city that's wilfully wasted every colour,
is when dragonflies fill the air and the green grasshoppers sing,
for then the wet is over and drying out.
Published in AnniVersaries (Brandl & Schlesinger, 1998).
