A Warmun canvas after the floods, March 2011
Beneath the runnels of grey leaking and seeping from the top of the canvas, ochres and mustards spill in disarray.Bright white dots sit in deltas, their linear connection sagging and pooling.Strong sienna mounds are smoothed and weep into the flats,The bold black has been thinned and wiped with a cloth.Tarmac is torn into jigsaw pieces.The place where the women sat is hidden by shredded wet season grasses: the artist has sprinkled splinters of Spinifex onto the surface.Below the waterline, a rufous mud dishevels the purpose.Above the waterline, struts and rooves stamp rectangle chequers onto the place where community can no longer gather.Two dogs look out from a corrugated raft. A long way from Sydney
There are currawongs in Dwellingupbut that's all you'll get of Sydney.Here operas happen without architects.Domestic confusion is played out insmall wood houses of two bedroom Acts,an orchestra of one-tonne utes,no need for surtitles.
Currawongs.They ignore the little birds —squeaky toys lining the fence —and fly their long throats around townwhile the cockatoos are out on a job.At evening they tuck the forest in,leaving the town sky open for localsto cast their own shrieks and whistlesup into the star filled harbour.
Blood brothers
No love lost in the lawyers' office —scalpel to the farm,the jugular weeping,a mother at homewinding wool into ballsto knit into sweatersagainst the winter's wind.
Brothers in blood;the feud boiling over fences,simmering on the flats.The canker of Colorbondcompeting on opposite hills.Dam walls restrainingthe festering valleys.
Sunday afternoon, Spring
We are on the verge, fixing the reticamong the long shadows of the street trees.Down the hollow street his thongs flap, flap.He crosses the road to say 'She's not doing so well.'
The lavender is low with the weight of its purple.Bees are sewing the wedding white flowers of the quince.Beneath the bottle brush, the leaving sun stirs nectar.
On such a day as thislovers, mothers and sonsshould not have to say goodbye.No one should be dying.
Then the new holland honeyeater with one glass whistleand one more,whips me back to Spring.
A magpie scrapes the warm air with its wings,lands on the car, scratches the roof, tic, tic.Black and not black, together in one bird;
telling methis day is as much about life as it is about death.
Josephine Clarke writes short stories and poetry. She is an active member of the Fremantle-based Out of