A successful afternoon of poetry, themed "Intersections", marked the end of this year's Antipodean Palette exhibition, at the Steps Gallery in Melbourne, last Sunday.
The shepherd wife
for her cosmos –
crease in the hills, a tortoise shell;
sea forces strips of blue between
the planks of outer walls
that have no windows to admit
the sky, the hills’ harsh beauty.
Fuel is scarce, so scarce
you walk for miles to find
a well-grown tree, or to fetch
springwater with the donkey.
to meet me, bloodstains on her shoes
from the chicken sacrificed
Her legs are swollen painfully
from hours tending open fires,
the bread oven; plain sadness
in her eyes for absent children.
each spring is brief,
an exactitude of heat
devour her days.