Recently, some photos I took in the Monaro region of NSW in 2006 have been coming back to me – I suppose because the header image in this new blog has an image I also took in the Monaro.
The drought was 10 years old in 2006. Here are some images:
My poem seven crows was influenced by driving around Monaro dirt roads at that time, to take photos, as were some small paintings.
seven crows
seven crows inhabiting the night
seek the taste of black meatharry the river of indifference
that flows like cold lava from the southwith the crows
from the bleached stalks and dry lands
to gloathaving driven the inhabitants
who were once keen farmersto muttering
shamed
that others may look at their blighted lands
and see their state of reductioncrying
do you want this bloody land
you can buy it from me
To finish, Judith Wright’s poem The Cicadas starts out:
On yellow days in summer when the earth
presses like hands hardening the sown earth
into stillness, when after sunrise birds fall quiet
and streams sink in their beds and in silence meet…
