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From: Vol.01 N.02 – Making way for other kind

Tracts of Spinifex and Ivy

by Joyce Parkes

In memory of Judith Wright

 

Persistent rain and wind gusts downed

branches, whole trees, electricity fees,

returned a wood fire and candlelight

 

to prominence. The fire, like passion,

brought warmth to the room. Candle-

light, like memory, gave enough light

 

to write on the windfalls of that winter

when her eyes became readers with

glasses. Resting on her ears, the glasses’

 

arms heard of drifting and dendrite

years — its leaves of envy, animosity,

acuity, amity, tapping on her window

 

on days of denouement or how so.

Is she looking at a windfall kept

for the fire, or seeing a winter’s wrap,

 

would she dwell on convex and

concave* lenses, place a magnifying

glass on the map staring at her

 

and write on tracts of eucalyptus

and pine trees, spinifex and ivy,

discover place and pith?

*From the poem Some Words by Judith Wright

Published: July 2014
Joyce Parkes

is published in Cordite, Overland, Pen International, The Journal of the Australian Irish Heritage Association, Creatrix, The New England Review, Westerly, foam:eBest Australian Poetry 2005 (UQP), Abridged, Axon and similarly committed literary journals, magazines and anthologies in Australia and in seven other countries. She writes to unravel what produces irony, disdain, audacity, empathy and reverie.

An Australian and international
journal of ecopoetry and ecopoetics.

Plumwood Mountain Journal is created on the unceded lands of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to elders past, present and future. We also acknowledge all traditional custodians of the lands this journal reaches.

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