by ANN CURWOOD An Island mirage calls forth the lost, hungry souls of rejected masses, Wretched convicts hardened by the slums from out they crawl. Hope springs from tales of Crusoe, eyes closed to all but palms. Virgin land remolded…
by PAULINE CLEARY At evening, we sat and watched the river, moving across the bushland, a wide brown shadow edging towards us, devouring all in its path and we perched on deckchairs, in our neat, lawned gardens and stared over…
by MARIA BONAR In my youth, the willow tree trailed branches like maidens’ tresses by the still, quiet waters of the Monkland canal teenage sweethearts slipped under the canopy for long steamy kisses on the mossy earth below inside, a…
by MARIA BONAR red dirt, ancient flat top mountains searing blue sky, scent of spinifex a distant swollen boab tree the silhouette of a rock wallaby appears briefly on top of the mount no breath of wind, no birdsong I…
by MARIA BONAR September transforms the landscape from red earth, to carpets of daisy-like everlastings with sprinklings of spider orchids, purple fringed lilies star flowers, kangaroo paws, in pops of colour like graduates at a high school ball plain banksia…
by KELLIE ASMUSSEN – An extract from a four-part piece II Deep gutters adjoin cobbled lanes and hot chocolate is sipped while drizzling rain changes to snow. Like magnets we congregate – no church required – and wings, then concealed,…
by KELLIE ASMUSSEN Through a slightly busy town, over a bent-round hill and splitting a valley of grass brown, a dusty dirt road beckons. Stomping a rusty fence of barb, the all-forever sighing willows reveal a quiet well-tapped clearing –…
by KELLIE ASMUSSEN Swishing movement amongst broken clatter its penetration a mere glimpse to those clad in black and blue, squatting within everything but hay. Blackened teeth stand marking the land, momentarily breaking the constant colour of tarnished grass-like fields…
by JUDE AQUILINA Like an old movie played backwards the building stones have flown back up, walls regrown, verandah posts standing tall again; timber floored rooms restocked with furniture. History’s ebbing tide has brought the dead back to shore, old…
by JUDE AQUILINA Below the hummock patchwork fields held together with barbed wire stitches. Wind riffles green stalks in watery waves like crushed velvet curtains closing at a country hall. The road winds down between green paddocks like spilt black…
