KANGAROO ISLAND
(for Syd and Jane)
A road from Flinders turns
Magnificent by the Harrex place,
Acquires spirit then heads south
Where vines refine ingenious valleys.
Here and there an apt simplicity
Musters booming crests, junctions,
Early towns. Along interim hills
Margined by the sky, the road
Intempo unconceals little surprises
Before Jevis-on-the-Cape.
At Penneshaw custodial cottages
Dream neatly, arrange adventure, brew
Island promises. Earth-Water-Air await
Combustion. Landscapes grip your senses.
Capture is release. Make small philosophies;
Associate, link. Inspect, if you wish,
The mind's sequence; trace unsettled shapes
Or, as freely, submit to pure panorama.
No ancient ruins urge, no epic heavings.
Only the sea's brute hunger still thundering
Cliff to rock, to shingle, sand.
Cove and cavern rotate our imaginings.
A thought moves insouciant among
Waves grown amiable below arc silences.
Socrates would have liked Lao Tzu and Plato
Confucius when it came to Government; the
Sermon on the Mount undivides, is access
To Divinity. The sun burns; the wind
Depletes. At Reeve's Point ancestral voices
Retrieve deep blue light; Kingscote
Beckons with a subtle, minor key. We
Talk of this and that, observe Italian
Bees, recall pelican squadrons, Remarkable
Rocks, redeem penguin and seal, then
Dissolve into Vivonne Bay's great sweep...
As quiet, privatised exploring between
Gestures, seeming inattention, vague shifts
In rhythm and the change of words, gathers
The completing Fire that casts shell, sound,
Meaning and echo into yet another beginning.
Edwin Thumboo
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