Stony Rises and Purrumbete from Above

Dreaming before sleep, I was in the air
above the Western District, not drifting
as in a balloon, a favourite wish of mine,
but as in a silent helicopter,
directedly inspecting what till now
I¹d seen only by road, implicated
into the landforms, hungrily glancing,
in touching-distance of those dry-stone walls
where the fields of Stony Rises are still
rocky, skirting those dips where dairy herds
trail in the afternoon to milking sheds,
glimpsing, as the road curved, a broad lake,
one of several, its glitter and coolness,
and broader pastures dotted with sheep.

At last I could sense pattern and relation, how
that small town earned its keep and its dignity,
with here light industry concealed, and there
its Avenue of Honour, green Anzac
veterans remindingly on parade,
leading to a half-modernised shopping street,
two or three civic buildings and a cenotaph.

Long driveways led to homesteads previously
hidden from me. One I recognized:
Purrumbete, creation of the Manifolds,
first land-takers, squattocracy - bluestone
and timber - now a Œluxury guest house¹.

Skirting over lake and guest-wing chimneys,
I dreamed again the children there who¹d once
stepped shivering into their cave-sheltered boat
and drifted out through willows to fishing spots,
patient till the trout and salmon leaped;
from above I saw its shearers¹ quarters
round which, ambivalent Œguest¹, I lately tramped
muddily before breakfast, ruminating
how sheep had paid for art, for a son to go
to Cambridge, change his world-view, fight to save
an order he despised Š John, I¹m thinking of,
soldier, poet, Marxist, musician, who,
returning post-war detached himself
from privilege and class-feeling, settled
remote in humid, spartan Queensland,
collecting songs from shearers and the like,
waiting on the change that never came.

Squinting at the Great Hall¹s murals*, I¹d read
the family story: Œlanding of first sheep¹,
Œdiscovery of lake¹, Œtasting the water -
finding it good¹; Œjourneying through Stony
Rises¹; Œattacked by Blacks while sinking well¹;
Œbuilding of homestead¹ - some dynastic triumph.

But now in dreaming flight above that land,
veering towards the Tower Hill sanctuary,
I saw flocks and herds of other families,
(none ŒBlack¹ - they made themselves, or were made, scarce,
west at Framlingham under forlorn roofs);
noted this for writing down next day, and slept.
     
* murals by Walter Withers, 1902.

- 4-9 February  2005

- Max Richards, North Balwyn, Melbourne