Philosophy
Don't you seek a centre,an object of devotion?Don't you seek a primal source of light?In the evening, on verandahs,in the dark, in the rain,don't you gawp like a foolat the moon on the grass?Don't you think of your lover,don't you think of your home?Don't you go inside quicklyand drink yourself blind?Don't you?Don't you?
Northern song
If ever I drove north againIt would be to find my fatherI'd have to hear his voice up thereTo justify the miles
I'm losing him in measuresHe doesn't know my nameDoesn't know the life we livedJust winks at me and smiles
I lose a little weight each dayMy voice is not my ownI do not know the face I shaveIts blemishes and wiles
So if I drove back north againAnd pulled up in that streetI'd want to hear the old man's nameTo justify the miles
I was born up there by accidentNow he's going the same wayI feel like going north againTo justify the miles
Whistling woman
I passed a woman on the moorswalking into a frantic wind,thin inside her lacquered mac,carrying plastic shopping bagswhich rattled, manic, as I passed.
Above this racket, I thoughtI heard her whistling. The windwas lightening her step, notholding her back; the harderit blew, the more it lifted her.
She'd learnt to do that, somewhereit was written plain in the historyof her narrow face and frame:the method in crazy grace.She'd learnt to sail both ways.
Wheatbelt trinity
On the wrong side of the street,too far from shops and shade,three yellow benches bake on concrete plinths.On a Sunday morning you can hear silencesleeping there, between the trucks and crows,floating flocks of pink and greys,maybe the squeaking sneakers of a shopper or two,silence is snoring on a hot metal bed,homeless again.
The railway station is a museum these daysand there's an old neon star strandedon a tower outside like a high-water mark,but no-one remembers why and it never lights up.No-one would notice if it did.Everything's lonely: the fences, paths,lampposts and bins lining the long way to All Saints'.The heat, the light and the silenceare our trinity now.
Something like a threatened specieslurks amongst rocks and hard-leaved trees;it'll blow us all away one day, the tourists say,that's the smell they like, flirting with despairon cut-price holidays, that's what's in the heartsof all those lost city types: the stench of infinitydrowning a failed experiment.That's the scent they follow.Nothing they like better.
Well, they can buy it, if they like.We'll take their money.We know the land's power to hurt us