I ... entered the poem of life, whose purpose is ... simply to witness the beauties of the world, to discover the many forms that love can take. (Barabara Blackman in 'Glass After Glass')

These poems are works in progress and may be updated without notice. Nevertheless copyright applies to all writings here and all photos (which are either my own or used with permission). Thank you for your comments. I read and appreciate them all, and reply here to specific points that seem to need it — or as I have the leisure. Otherwise I reciprocate by reading and commenting on your blog posts as much as possible.

2 August 2013

At Obiri Rock

At Obiri Rock a woman,
chalked on dark stone, floated 
next to the orb of the moon.
Drawn hundreds of years ago,
her delicate lines have lasted.

Around Obiri, the sheltering scrub
was sparse, the grasses 
dotting bare earth. I wanted to be
an Aboriginal child long ago
running that ground.


Note: Obiri Rock is in Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory. The drawings are in a shallow (but tall) cave created by an overhang. I have never seen a photograph of the particular images in the poem, though photos of the many other drawings there exist and can be found by Googling. The ones in the poem were apart, very high up, and not so sharp or detailed as others.

Submitted for dVerse Form For All: Poetry as Semaphore, in which Samuel Peralta (@Semaphore on twitter) invites us to create poems with verses of exactly 140 characters. I found that this discipline 'fixed' an old draft that wasn't quite working before.

My own twitter name is @SnakyPoet. I tend to use it (poetically) for short poems, where the whole poem is 140 characters or fewer, or else to link to longer poems on my blog.

20 comments:

  1. makes me think of Stonehedge

    a tweet of a poem

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    1. It does have that same timeless feel, but in other ways is very different from Stonehenge, being a natural formation set in bushland. I have now added a note to the post, which explains it a bit more.

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  2. glad you linked up. following you now as well.

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  3. Enjoyed this so much..I can relate to the words.

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  4. smiles...cool...there is something in me that desires a more ancient place...at the dawn of man...

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  5. Love the mystical tone to this piece, a glimpse into an ancient world.

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  6. The ending did it for me... love this!

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  7. beautiful imagery... :-)

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  8. Just loved the description and the childhood wish.

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  9. love the chalking on dark stone...some beautiful magic in this...and running that ground as a native...sounds beautiful

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  10. Feels ancient and enlightening and I want to be there.

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  11. Good capture of your reaction when viewing an ancient relic. Nice.

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  12. Like the collective conscious of ancestral memory...timeless. ~peaceful Friday, Jason

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  13. The lure of this is irresistible--beautiful writing, drawing deep emotions to the surface.

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  14. Beautifully done - your evocation of that tableau when an ancient relic's significance was etched forever in time, that evocation is masterfully done.

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    1. Thanks, Sam. I just realised it is Obiri Rock,not Oberoi. But I was able to insert a couple of commas to get the characters up to 140 again.

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    2. That's the way it's done!

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  15. Beautiful, i love how you bring the drawing into the landscape.

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  16. ...Rosemary, these are beautiful... both verse has a tanka feel to it...but i favorited your first verse... loved it... smiles...

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  17. This was thought provoking. I've never once wanted to go back to that period of time and I wondered why anyone would; but upon reflection thought that the purity of scenery, the scarcity of people, the poetry of nature then would have trumped the unnatural creature comforts we enjoy today. This was certainly a powerful piece!

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