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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781742194745 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Spinifex Press |
| Publication date: | 03/01/1998 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 185 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
Read an Excerpt
Ruby Camp/Travelling alone together
By Louise Crisp, Miriel Lenore, Alex Skovron
Spinifex Press Pty Ltd
Copyright © 1998 page design Spinifex PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-74219-474-5
CHAPTER 1
Pattern
feltas
1
Snowy River pine & xanthorrhoea
define the warmth gradient
out of the valley
the sun works
its way around the north
face of old boulders
& shale
goes up into steepness
abruptly as a gift should
2
something attracts
your interest. alert
floods through/disappears
the ordinary focuses
on a tin cup near the campfire
he says:
there's nothing out there
as if nothing is
equivalent
to the unvisited
3
everpresent is background noise
you want to put your hands over ...
but the mind
develops a technique
for silence
like several thousand years
with the Diamond Sutra
you notice
that insight has become inseparable
from recognition. like a striking place
you could pull the canoe up to
along a sandbar
on any big bend of the river
thanks George Bell
(photographer)
I'm looking for Ruby
along the headwaters
cousin of my great-grandfather
near Paupong in 1905
a skilled horsewoman:
any approach to the Snowy
is rough & steep
and goes direct to the heart
of an early persistent myth
from the region
i.e. post 1890
there is invariably some man
racing between the stringybarks
shouting for a challenge
while Ruby leads her horse
that last little bit to water
stance pattern I
cripple
to be cut open
& crystals inserted
is no escape?
stamp around the fire with the old
body & the new
through smoke
arms & palms extended
to receive via the flat gesture
& lateral for gifts
becoming two carved snakes
& the gleam of skin
twists above my head
karst
the water spins underground
each frill of water is muscle white
& clear
as bone scraping
a song for the dead
tumbledown johnny
tumbledown jack
what would we hear
if history were black?
coming down the
gully
the men are unafraid to ride with their
faces uncovered
like an article of faith: 'thieves and
damned savages'
& a gun under the saddleflaps can make
them feel.
the horses trot quietly over hollow
ground
bones & stones
& bodies that crack
on boulders & blood
it's breaking our back
J.Macleod writes to A.W.Howitt:
'My brother Norman and I, and seven
Omeo blacks,
surrounded them ... in the Murrindal
River just
below The Pyramids.
... I killed a bullock for them and they ate
till they
were sick.'
blackness is skin
blackness is terror
black as the sun
when you're held under
water
history diverts underground for 115
years
re-emerges in The Gap magazine 1966:
'... the aborigines who were feasting on the banks
of a lagoon
behind The Pyramids. Confronted by the
white men
and all chance
of escape cut off by the steep cliffs of the
Murrindal River,
the tribe had no chance of escape ...'
worn smooth & hollow
as a cup of bone
the bed of the river
is a river of stone
the clear water runs around each worn
stone
spills into joints & hollows
where the river runs underground
the bodies were thrown
stance pattern II
banish or the Pyramids]
the hands listen between the stones
taut as ears
the palms vertical
& arms stretched out straight
turn to the east stone
turn to the west stone
turning opens the space
& strength enters
facing north
your hands cross over your heart
as if out of the act
comes a rich old woman-song
— how could you not say:
the earth mothers me
when I'm banished
abide with me
memory/& the pattern of the stance
restore me over
Murrindal
just upstream
from the Pyramids
the water, the rocks
the aspect
of sun on the limestone bluff
each day denies
the clean washed light
of TV sets
each night
flowing out through the dark
from the 3 houses
in Murrindal valley
& the quiet
of their English country gardens
just north of Buchan.
where Butchers Creek
Slaughterhouse Gully
& Butchers Ridge
mean that locals still joke
when one of them burns
another canoe tree down
birdstones
at the confluence
Buchan/Snowy proffers
a small stone
white & black speckles
a little quail's egg
stone
or
bulk — the stone
turned away from
the stone of terror
here is the almighty
fear, the swamping fear
a wall of muddy water
smelt and tasted
advances down the breadth
of the river
the overcoming, choking
unable to breathe fear
the stone guides the fear
to the listener
the smeller, the taster
the dead ones
bulk — the stone
turned away from
I can't say their names:
the dead
or because I never knew them.
I wrap the stone in a bark package:
when it cannot see
I cannot see through it
buried in mud
bulk — power stone (Gunai/Kurnai)
Freestone
with children on our backs & following
behind us
through the snow gums
we round each rocky knob/knoll
to bless
the valley
with our expectoring breath
and gasp across to Rams Horn
— follow that hot brumby shit
sign/up the last grassy haul to the
summit
nobody a brave
hero
or rider for Indians
& the one who leaves our names in the
book
is neither game nor aware
that south-east across the cliffs
Freestone spur was the route
all those draywheel ancestors
came by into here
crossing/ford I
downstream from Gattamurh
('the wheels of the Toyota go round &
round')
my baby's head against the sky
I laugh like a blue child
& clouds scuff over
the white-pine ridges
when the moon rises into your face
I see how
you both sleep
in the bright pale light
that bodies make
in a deep pool near camp
the bunyip who lives here
swallows our shadows
sejant
I come into her country
the dingo observes me
seeking a trail across
the river
padding back & forth
then sitting to wait
on a sandbar
the wind does not
disturb her or my smell
having watched this long on the track
a call may do it
or a cry
or someone she slept near
a long time ago
I wait
for the scent of memory
then go/
lie down by her
unborn
like a stone that bled
two children
have left me
where bird prints
mark the sand
below a cliff
I lay them out
so tiny
just a cluster of cells
I wrapped around
tightly as bodies
inside me
I heap
two small graves
of sand
less than the length
from my hand
to elbow:
a single twig
at the head of each
marking the ascent
quartz
the pink oval stone is my mask
the one possibility of many possibilities.
when a sister is given it
she goes in search of masks
high & low for masks
in foreign countries & beyond
she searches inside her own gizzard
taking feathers
from ancient birds she has never seen
sewing them as soft as possible
to brush my skin
with the scent
of possibilities
little stones the size of bird droppings
nestle in the fluff glued for eyes
I have spoken to her many times about it
with tail feathers like flags
the mask reaches below
my shoulders
& the pink stone she carries airborne
nestles like a heart
in the song of possibilities
fascination & egg
'smaller at the top
and wider at the bottom
they're egg-shaped'
we tip the kids out
of the backpacks
into the shade at the river
there's a small hard body
scooped in sand
at my feet —
a pale oval stone
I talk to egg:
anyone could have found
you
accidental as a lover
oval as my inner mouth
the Toyota tracks up a gully
on to the contour benched above the
river
going in the direction of Mt Bulla Bulla
& Suggan Buggan River
follow
a line, a track, a deviation
any alternative
in steep country
to find your egg
daughter stone
squat by an unlit fire
& the crystals of the stone
will encompass you
slide on a red river
low to the ground
as a creature is loved
like an arc or an exit
that returns you
to yourself
in a small turn
or a huge leap
now become human
the hand
bind my hand
and I shake it
in every direction
YOU LIE.
attached/tied
by twined spun-greasily
hair
thinner & thinner the hair winds
as my hand spins
the stump of my hand in an old possum
pocket.
any defence
in this catchment:
Shades of Death — creek
northerly — Mt Trooper
& east up the river to another
— Slaughterhouse/creek
I could point in all directions
riddled with bullets
the ghost calls — TREATY?
avoidance place
I make a circle
to cross the river
at the beginning of Sandy Creek track
on the bare patch of ground
above the junction with the Snowy
I leave a small piece
of yellow quartz
next to the protector stone
I go around carefully
up Sandy Creek
& over
the ridge along from Mt Trooper
and down Joe Davis Creek
it takes four hours
to go around this one stone
which is a warrior stone
a fighting stone
& when I come back downstream
to face it
the triple spears
of stillness
silence
& distance
rush to grab me
I recross the river
re-enter the circle
& wait forever
crossing/ford II
at Burnt Hut crossing
I look for the long oval stone
in the fast river
the cleared country is above me
like clouds
I look for its reflection
I want to bring you down
down to bones
down to blood
down to past country
down to stone
this stone is more than memory
it is strong
it resides in water
I look for its distinctive shape
in the river
I hear a list of names
families
massacres
the stone says:
ignore the sorrow
you ignore the healing
the stone has not been found
Biddi
search
once you had given me the directions
I could not look elsewhere
the further I went downriver —
I realised I'd come a long way
but according to the map
it was nowhere
I felt scared without the lineaments
of mapping: latitude & longitude
virtually unreal
I looked over the edge of all those
steep hills & cliffs
holding so much power
but what remains to be done with them?
how could they possibly be salvation?
I know the beauty in the small hollows
of ground when I turn
over the stones you have shown me
the rainbow colours lying in circles &
swirls
as netting does over water
but if I am fish can I ever
be rainbow?
hillside vs river flow
you know from the design these places:
accurate & specific
the body charts topography
smoothly
as two small hills
I climb between
a circle & a point
over a pass to come
down onto the river
there's a single bent line
at the intersection
of Barrabilli Creek
& the west bend
turning towards
Milky Creek lookout
crosshatched above me
are small holes
in the red cliffs
& nearer
the perfectly straight line
of a waterfall
with a 1 metre drop
right across the river
sluices the diagram
I begin again:
8524 Jacobs River
FV 248087
8523 Murrindal
FV 271033
&
FV 249021
as I approach
the junction of the Snowy
& Suggan Buggan rivers
two low spurs disguise the exit
entrance/the body recognises
the design
I continue walking
& the disguise is forgone
before I reach it
Biddi
we make love
before I leave
for Tongaroo junction
following an old track
along the riverbank
towards Willis Biddi
I feel the other things
that come to here:
no expectations
no sorrow
moving through the pines
in & out of sight
of a rock outcrop
on the opposite bank
cleft & circle
where the river turns
at the mouth of Willis Biddi
I splash in the shallows
going past the cleft
the hood widens
opening like renewal
the four men camped there
wake next morning
feeling transformed overnight
into female
horse koan
the roan stallion
hunts his mares
away from me
up the Willis Biddi
I follow the sandy
horse trail
out of the sun
towards Pinch Mountain
I pass axe blazes
on white-box trees
all the way
back down again
she-wolf
on her return
my sister brings a mask
the skin stretched tight
over its mouth & face
across a bone frame
she is starving
but unable to feed
her dugs dried
& unsuckled
since then she has herself
flesh
& a cavernous home
she has brought tidbits
for her nieces
scraps of fur
they nuzzle
and sniff at the distant
icy steppes
behind the skin of the mask
I become her imagination
milk bathes my eyes
& the children are drinking
bloodstones
a day's walk below the border
the stones begin
talking
a
small reddy-pink stone
mush & pulpy
living as brain
would say
time to halt here
a
slender oblong on the bend
below the helipad
pink-red & white speckles
suggests the blood
of my daughters
& when will I return to them
a
larger speckled red-pink
palm stone — size
of a hand
carrying arrival
in late afternoon
now all the humans
have gone away/home
accompanied by their voices
I have forgotten them
the stones are like words
& I dare not take them up
the river draws me nearer
to a sound
underneath the water
Steeltrap
out along Turnback
Peacock & Gander
have gone
imitating the hunter's multiples
far-fetched & roaming
from this high up on the ridge
direction takes
automatically from the air
as speed does
the shale splits vertically
to the river
& vision goes
clear north
to the range behind S.B. junction
when I look down
I can see the striations
& darker hollows marked
on the sandy
river bed by waterflow
strong as illusion the dream works
its way into landscape:
having descended the spur
I look back up along Turnback
thinking this poem
was once about horses
nostalgia smoke
sniff is a dangerous quantity
but closer to home than you
ever shall be
arranging this damned godswill:
move the ladder closer
(a dream goes up)
the toeholds slip
& the mountainface is an incorrect
vantage —
scarp & crevice
I reason: the fire
has yet to be identified
the gap
with no-death as the strata
& a rock-filled hole
we could be there
I implore you
don't forget your runners
& the trace remaining
on the sheet-wet sand
gather them up
you have nothing
to write on
but the lay of land
makes a nice fiction
so you can rest
your head
on the frontage just above
the thud of waves
figure eight
making two attempts to enter
the Snowy
meets the Brodribb
east of lakes Wat Wat & Corringle
it is a bright yellow morning
over the green slope
the two girls run
should I be forgiven
for not wanting them
to come closer/their happiness
reflecting upon
the lake surface
like the thousand birds
I look down on
from the headland
their noise
raising me up
from the water
Long Point/lower
Snowy
one metre in diameter
the sphere is a place
to stand in
smaller than the sun
gone
overhead to my left
the water goes around
on three sides/Halt
I heard:
the flute of the goat boy
my sister brought
back from Europe
for the new year
further downstream
my mother's voice
over very hot sand
(the wine is the colour
of the willows)
in the shade there are bits
of my other relatives
talking
sentimental the goat
boy runs up
& down the other
side of the riverbank
bending wattles
a red hat over his genitals
we watch from the shade
taking turns
while someone minds
the children
to pad up the sandbank
to the sphere
falling inwards
to the lukewarm water
raft/Little River junction
the children fret
on the riverbank
under the shade
of an old tarp
& willow branches
I bend & weave
& knot
coloured wool
for the smallest
to pull on
the river
is too deep
to let them go
on their own
my sister
is passively helpful
we hold them
in the river for hours
I raft in & out
on anger
that night
it rains
& everything cools
next morning
I cross the river
to the conical mountain
& climb to the memorial
at nearly the top
to somebody's mate
from a walking club
his ashes still husking
his spirit around
the oldest kurrajong
I've ever seen
to the wasted rhythm
of doggerel
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Ruby Camp/Travelling alone together by Louise Crisp, Miriel Lenore, Alex Skovron. Copyright © 1998 page design Spinifex Press. Excerpted by permission of Spinifex Press Pty Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
I Pattern,feltas,
thanks George Bell (photographer),
stance pattern I (cripple),
karst,
stance pattern II (banish),
Murrindal,
birdstones,
Freestone,
crossing/ford I,
sejant,
unborn,
quartz,
fascination & egg,
daughter stone,
the hand,
avoidance place,
crossing/ford II,
II Biddi,
search,
hillside vs river flow,
Biddi,
horse koan,
she-wolf,
bloodstones,
Steeltrap,
nostalgia smoke,
the gap,
figure eight,
Long Point/lower Snowy,
raft/Little River junction,
Boloco,
stance pattern III (cup),
crossing/ford III (saddle),
swallow,
Farmers Creek,
wood fish,
Byadbo,
stone masks the ghost,
III Gift,
en/trance S.B. River,
safe camp,
land: your quote,
redness,
stance pattern IV (718),
fanning & spreading out,
handmade,
from Reedy,
gyre,
she looks like me,
stringbag,
Rocky Conical Peak,
upstream/south,
song: to the heart,
Notes,