Ah - you see what happens if one races off a snap without to much thought!
Early morning inspiration comes back to bite me as a poem I have read and
admired so many times that it has become subconsciously rooted. I was using
shipfold in the context of a safe bay - I've seen the word used, but very
rarely.
I haven't seen the film, but have read the book. Gaita is a strange one. He
accuses those of us who replant trees in the district
of 'destroying memory'. One presumes it is his. The pastures of his
childhood are now degraded and ruined, so I would think we would be
preserving, not destroying.
There's a Eurocentric superiority in some of his work that disturbs me
sometimes. Or perhaps I am joining (acknowledging myheritage???) the
'subhuman rednecks' after all!
caleb
On 8/15/07, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Lovely, Caleb.
> The word argument however immediately brought to mind this:
>
> South Country
>
> After the whey-faced anonymity
> Of river-gums and scribbly-gums and bush,
> After the rubbing and the hit of brush,
> You come to the South Country
>
> As if the argument of trees were done,
> The doubts and quarrelling, the plots and pains,
> All ended by these clear and gliding planes
> Like an abrupt solution.
>
> And over the flat earth of empty farms
> The monstrous continent of air floats back
> Coloured with rotting sunlight and the black,
> Bruised flesh of thunderstorms:
>
> Air arched, enormous, pounding the bony ridge,
> Ditches and hutches, with a drench of light,
> So huge, from such infinities of height,
> You walk on the sky's beach
>
> While even the dwindled hills are small and bare,
> As if, rebellious, buried, pitiful,
> Something below pushed up a knob of skull,
> Feeling its way to air.
>
> Kenneth Slessor (south being south of Sydney)
>
> But you do escape that shadow, if it is a shadow.
>
> Motor.. remains for me a bit obscure even though windscreen occurs further
> on.
> And shipfold a word new to me, and oddly close to sheepfold
> (none in your region, I should think).
>
> (Did you like the setting of the recent movie, My Father Romulus?)
>
> Best from Max
>
>
> On 15/8/07 10:55 AM, "Caleb Cluff" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > After the argument of boulders, stone bent
> > shoulder to shoulder, the descent.
> >
> > Grasses aflame with summer intending. Silent motor coasting
> > inches above the earth. This is the slope of earth's breast,
> >
> > and its curve is everlasting. We are leaving your coast.
> > Come lie with me in this sliver-cradle. I am apron,
> > oilskin, shipfold, heartbreak. Through the windscreen
> > the sky bellies like a spoon alight. You so far above it.
> >
> > Caleb Cluff
> > Majorca, Vic.
> > 15/8/07
>
> --
>
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