Dawn Life Journey

2023 Leaving outback Broken Hill

 

We leave at dawn

a wide land before us

and behind a silver stream of memory

 

The country reveals its fragile beauty

saltbush grey under a level light

over dry gulches with history

in river names

Three Sisters Bridge

did they swim or die here or

wonder why they had come?

why too am I on this journey

in this shadow-country, god-forsaken

and the plain ending in Namatjira-painted hills

with sheep the colour of dust

 

This is not a lush country

nor generous to its invaders

but memory runs deep -

our milestones

smashed kangaroo carcasses

their bloated legs raised above

a smear of flesh and white bones,

crows rise, dark mourners in attendance

black goats note our passing

does this land know the glory of rain?

 

I dreamt of you last night

your shade lingers even here

where you never came

nor will ever come

 

The road behind me

a silver stream of memory

The Alien Immigrants

 

In their own way

almost beautiful

these ferals dancing

upon our hillside.

The yellow flowers blooming

far from home:

French Flax, Wild Mustard,

Latin names too hard

for us to learn.

Delicate, so easy

to pull out, roots and all,

they shudder under the sun.

 

We discuss methods

of eradication.

On the fertile ground

by the roadside

We have removed them

with spray and machete,

but up here among the rocks

on our wildest slopes,

they cling with hope.

No name but beauty

No Name but Beauty

 

I caught a pink snapper

in the first light

pulling from the oil-grey sea

a sliver of dawn,

salmon pink stripes

and blue dots.

eyes too large, the sun

spreading as blood.

 

Round eyes that saw

unblinking, or did not see

as I did, the last

slow waving of her

webbing on translucent fins

against the cruel air.

I did not know

there are shades between pink and pearl

iridescence, for which there are

no names but beauty.

For my brother, Mike (1945-2011)

 The Blackbird Sings

For my brother, Mike, who died in 2011

 

This evening a blackbird sings in the valley below.

I cannot fault his song

nor his determination to be heard,

so deeply sweet, yet sharp in the air.

 

Finally, it came down to this: a sterile room.

Not the place you would choose for final conversations

a slim hard bed with a view of brick walls and dirty windows

where one small green tree climbed a corner nook.

A limited view, not even clouds passing,

nor bird song, only a series

of cheery ladies with other plans for the evening.

A framed print of a fading magnolia,

or you said, was it two naked ladies?

We laughed till you told me that the wall

had turned red.

Painkillers had side effects.

 

What horrors await us?

Are there already

lurking under the skin,

or calling us down the long white corridors

to meet us shuffling round the corner

with vacant unsmiling eyes,

shapeless, shape-changing.

 

We wanted more time

to grow older, grow wiser in some way

possible, but not yet known.

 

The blackbird has learned his song

from those before.

The memory of others

and a long line of perfecting

and living, not dying

in that moment of release

into the still air beyond brick walls.

Under Mount Ranier

This woman

brave and joyful

beneath 

ancient red cedars

swims free

in the tumbling river

of late snow melt.

Strange to me, 

These songless northern forests.

Our past, from another land,

I chose to forget,

now raises its shadow

over this valley.

This is the child I bore

when still a child. 

She has found her way

through these woods,

her path not mine.

Single file I follow.

How to say 

take care, or something

like, a warning,

meaning the same?

In words carrying

sense without hurt.

Make a moment

to remember our story,

give it more

wisdom than

was truly so. Saying,

I too was there,

once.

And the river flows

through this autumn

as the moon wanes

and pale salmon gather

strength for their last swim

against the rush,

to die silent in deep pools.

Before the Rains

                             

Before the rains

red is the colour

as sunset bleeds into this land.

Tendrils of termites

embrace the trunks

as pale leaves sink

little by little into

a sift of dust.

On the paths

white bones gleam

beside footprints

of those fleeing

in circles

from the long hunger.

Anne Chappel

A dancer upon reality's mirror

My memory knows the pitfalls,

those places of pain where

the soul asks forgiveness

for its failures.

Is it better songless

to skim lightly

with the knowing that

one day, one time,

eventually,

something beyond memory,

an ancient need,

will demand more,

rising formidable and stern

to face

your wandering form

and say

Now!

It is time!

You must cross

the river stones one at a time,

turn back to look -

but those, 

there on the shore,

pale figures in the trees,

their cries are bird song.

You will wish

your touch had been

purer, like the music

that finally

reaches you

on the other side.

The bird-killing tree of the Great Barrier Reef, pisonia grandis

 Black Noddy on Lady Elliot Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia

 Removing the barbed seeds

some of the sticky seeds - note the stalks that are like grappling hooks

Black Noddy with chick in the pandanus plants on Lady Elliot Island, GBR, Australia

I like to think of non-human nature working for the best in a challenging world: beneficent, evolving with the needs of complex communities. I understand there is killing but, unlike with humans, all to a purpose: nothing wanton, little wasted.

I also thought that there was a hierarchy of power and strength so it did not cross my mind that a tree could kill a large seabird. But one can and it's not a pretty sight, especially on a tourist island in full season.

The Pisonia grandis tree is grand by any terms, especially as a survivor on a small coral cay coping with poor soil and intermittent cyclones. It manages to grow into a mighty tree over twenty metre high with wide branches and a large grey spreading trunk with tentacles like an octopus clinging to the soil. The leaves are large and bright-green and much favoured by seabirds to line their nests. The tree seems to cater for the birds with many spots available for building nests. If you compare it to the other main trees of the coral cay islands, the allocasurinas, you can see why the Black Noddys and the Bridled Terns favour this apparently perfect tree. But there is a nasty side-line to this generosity.

When the birds breeding season is in full swing with thousands of seabirds occupying every nook and cranny of the coral cay, the seeds branches of pisonia trees mature and drop to the ground.

The seeds are born on a branching structure as big as a human hand and each stalk bears many centimetre long seeds, rather like long grains of chocolate-coloured rice, but this is barbed rice. While the seeds are immature and green they are no danger.

However, once the seed branchlets dry and fall to the ground they become a deadly trap for the birds.

At this stage the seeds exude a glue that adheres to whatever touches it - perhaps the tail feathers of the many buff-banded rails that frequent these islands, or most often to the flight feathers one of the thousands of nesting seabirds that alight under the trees for shade, preening, or for meeting their mates.

When one seed adheres the whole branchlet remains with the seed and very soon the other seeds stick to further feathers: the long flight feathers and the fine downy feathers of the head and neck. Before long the bird cannot fly and the more it tries to remove the seeds, the more other seeds catch on. The bird walks around under the trees, trying for days to free itself before it collapses and dies of exhaustion, dehydration and starvation.

Of course, these birds are couples and the partner waiting on the nest for relief and food for their chick must eventually abandon the chick to survive itself.

When we saw birds in this situation on Lady Elliot Island we were distraught but were told by the staff of the marine centre that this was 'nature' at work and that only approximately 1% of the birds die and furthermore that the death of the birds helped the trees to grow as their decaying carcasses would provide nutrient for the seeds to germinate.

However, after some research I find that both these statements are not correct. This is according to current research in the Seychelles Island of Cousins where they have found that depending on the timing of the crops of seeds the death rate can be as high as 25% in some species and that the germination of the pisonia seeds is not facilitated by being within the carcass of a seabird. Nature Seychelles have now adopted a policy of removing stands of pisonia grandis from Cousin Island. Yet on Lady Elliot Island in Australia they are busy planting more.

My husband and I spent some time catching the disabled seabirds that were covered in pisonia seeds and removing them. It is not easy. The barbs and the glue are a horrible combination and it took two of us some time to remove the intertwined branchlets with their lethal seeds from the bird's bodies. However, it gave us great pleasure to set each bird free and see it disappear over the sea.

I have alerted Lady Elliot Island to the new research from the Seychelles and I have written to Birdlife in Australia to ask for their guidance on current Australian research. It appears to me that Lady Elliot Island in particular is operating under old misconceptions. 

https://seychellesseabirdgroup.wordpress.com/2013/06/02/pisonia-grandisa-grand-problem/

POW Memorial, Sandakan, Borneo.

There is a dark grove of trees on the hill

of Sandakan,

where the prisoners finished their lives,

or began to finish them

in unspeakable ways,

no gentle deaths allowed.

The powerful ones showed

such ingenuity in torture.

How to slowly crucify.

How to punish the body

with heat and starvation

before merciless death.

The men were brave,

the survivors said,

when ulcers ate their legs,

perhaps a whimper or two.

The jungle took their bodies.

Felt hats decaying in the undergrowth.

Then the death marches,

to finish them off in Ranau

under the shadow of Mount Kinabalu.

The barely-alive still hoping, somehow,

before the final shots from

men obeying orders.

This story has many variations

on war’s hills and valleys.

What are the questions

for captive and captor?

Both answers hide within us, waiting

for history’s awakening.

The Pilgrim Road to Santiago

(For Nerma)   

I met a young girl

on the road to

Santiago de Compostela

when the journey was nearly done.

Her load she bore lightly

as she shortened her pace for mine.

I am not a man,

but when the day comes,

for counting the memories

I will recall her beauty.

What gift could be given

along the way, taking each step

closer to Santiago’s gleaming city?

The spires there heavy with ancient meaning,

stone angels in perpetual

supplication and holy desire.

What could I say of life?

There were things I could have said,

but was I able to tell her

what I could not tell myself?

Walking as the dawn broke behind us

I thought to open her eyes

to the magpie’s call

in the dark cathedral of the morning.

Will you be sorry at the end

for the goal we wish for?

But it is not the end, she said.

She showed me the stones

that she carried, each one

fitting the palm of her hands.

What could I tell her?

The vines touched with gold

with September’s chill,

dogs howling at our passing.

And when she was gone

with her swift tread

my heart ached

with the sweetness of life.

Maybe what I sought

had travelled with us.

The gift had been given.

My Father

He does not listen any more, my Father,

when I phone him from across the world,

same day, same time every week.

His words carry a message he will not speak.

I cannot answer, for what can I offer?

I would like to say that I will be here

to listen again, to believe the past;

stories of old worlds he lived through,

for the present is a confusion.

His eye’s centre has disappeared,

slipped away, blanked out from overuse.

He has seen too much in the tropical suns.

Words I have heard before keep flowing,

as I listen to his breath, 
the heart beneath

and the life,
more precious than I can say.

The Emu Eggs

We climbed the desert mountain,

bush walkers, past pride of youth.

Private journeys across the cliffs

burdened with pain of body and soul,

our backs to the vastness,

mutely we challenged the red rock.

Suddenly, the plateau, beneath the sky.

Nothing else, nothing above.

A lightness of the air, such beauty

surrounded by the expanse.

A view uncontained, layers of blue and purple.

Far below, the bed of an ancient sea.

And there now at our feet, more wonder still.

An emu’s nest, full and round bearing seven eggs.

Here distilled, the colour of tropical seas,

the high wind of the callitris.

A gift beyond expectation,

a journey transformed.

©Anne Chappel

The Ethiopian Coptic Cross

(made from old bullet cases)

Bullet cases from the Sahara,

poor brass discarded

in the shifting sands

from forgotten wars,

one tribe settling

scores of ancient hate

till all memory is lost

of the original sin.

New sins blossom,

the only flowers

in a land where

starving goats hunt

last year’s pods

under dead trees,

and a boy child

watching the hills

balances a rifle

across his knees.

The old man hammers

out of the bullets

holy crosses

whose patterns

hold hands in a

splendour of promise.

©Anne Chappel

The Shell Collection

Before she died, my friend returned

her shell collection to the sea.

It was where they belonged, she said,

where they gleam brightest.

These are their remains

that in death make a beach.

Caressed by waves, pounded by storms,

marked by tides,

sorted and resorted by shape and size,

part of earth’s pattern in every day’s

new arrangement.

The tide turns and pauses

like a breath, out and in,

then the sigh,

the wait of a moment,

the choice of life rather than death.

And so I remember her.

When I walk the sea’s edge

and stop before a shell,

whose shape and form,

like some treasure dazzles me,

I pass by, letting the earth claim her own.

©Anne Chappel 

Argonaut Sea Gift

Have you ever found a nautilus shell?

On the beach, gleaming

amongst the dark sea wrack

each whorl, curve, indentation

a perfect creation.

Strange traveller of the ocean depths,

part bird, part hero of ancient times.

Home of a fearsome protector

whose lidless eyes saw other worlds

in a journey beyond our imagination.

Now stranded here, a sublime gift.

Fragile perfection borne through the blue

to death on the bright shore.

If god lives, this is his work,

no better could we do.

©Anne Chappel

No Names but Beauty

I caught a pink snapper

in the first light

pulling from the oil grey sea

a sliver of dawn,

salmon pink stripes

and blue dots,

eyes too large. The sun

spreading as blood.

Round eyes that saw

unblinking, or did not see

as I did, the last

slow waving of her

webbing on translucent fins

against the cruel air.

I did not know

there are shades between pink and pearl

iridescence, for which there are

no names but beauty.

© Anne Chappel

Along the Shore

There are new things

along the shore

where storms have carved

seaweed into dark banks

against fallen stands of sea box.

A solitary gum is dying,

broken glass shines brightly

along the thin shell line.

Beach shacks jostle for the view

sharp edged in the sun,

as buildings grow.

We read the signs

sometimes so gently given

with their own strange beauty

showing us the passing world

that our children will,

crying, try to remember.

© Anne Chappel

Skinning a Squid

Skinning a Squid         

                        

Its skin comes away in one piece,

translucent, a veil over my hand,

speckled like seaweed

with a thin azure line.

Stretching out, pulled

from the pale flesh.

I remember how its wings flowed,

diamond fins, rippling towards me

as I drew in the deadly barbs

and the invisible line in the dark sea.

Eyes are slippery orbs in the silver head,

I will keep for bait.

The tentacles still stick, holding on.

I cut the skin from the body and scrape

the mess into a bucket where it drops,

with the orbs of testes. The ink,

its purple life-blood, staining my hands.

There lies the sock of its body, milky-white

ready for crumbing and frying.

You can mince the head and innards,

freeze them in cubes for burley.

Let them enter the water once more,

dropping dead lumps to the ocean floor.

Nothing is wasted.

© Anne Chappel

The Alien Immigrants

The Alien Immigrants

In their own way

almost beautiful

these ferals dancing

upon our hillside.

Delicate, so easy

to pull out, roots and all,

they shudder under the sun.

The yellow flowers blooming

far from home:

French Flax, Wild Mustard,

proper names too hard

for us to learn.

We discuss methods

of eradication.

On the fertile ground

by the roadside

We have removed them

with spray and machete,

but up here among the rocks

on our wildest slopes,

they cling with hope.

© Anne Chappel

For Mike. It would have been your 67th Birthday on 17 November.

The Blackbird Sings

Every evening a blackbird sings in the valley below.

I cannot fault his song

nor his determination to be heard,

so deeply sweet, yet sharp in the air.

Finally, it came down to this, a sterile room.

Not the place you would choose for final conversations,

a slim hard bed with a view of brick walls and dirty windows

where one small green tree climbed a corner nook.

A limited view, not even clouds passing,

nor bird song, only a series

of cheery ladies with other plans for the evening.

A framed print of a fading magnolia,

or you said, was it two naked ladies?

We laughed till you told me that the wall

had turned red.

Pain killers had side effects.

What horrors await us?

Are there already

lurking under the skin,

or calling us down the long white corridors

to meet us shuffling round the corner

with vacant unsmiling eyes,

shapeless, shape changing.

We wanted more time

to grow older, grow wiser in some way

possible, but not yet known.

The blackbird has learnt his song

from those before,

the memory of others

and a long line of perfecting

and living, not dying

in that moment of release
into the still air beyond brick walls.

© Anne Chappel