Jo Forestier

Our Beautiful World

A landscape of change

Roses bloom in many colours

In many places

Always amaze me with their

Brilliance, diversity and beauty

Nations too

Like roses offer diversity, beauty

Culture with difference

Yet we are forever at war

And I wonder why

There is no harmony in

Our beautiful world

Jo Forestier – August 2007

(This poem was written specially for this year’s International Writers’ Celebration)

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Australia

Flinders Ranges

Where the sun blazes relentlessly

Everywhere is still but for the buzzing flies

This landscape I love

Of my adopted homeland

Where the emus and kangaroos hop and

Stroll around the hills

To the east lies the outer wall of the

Giant Wilpena Pound

Nature’s amphitheatre, silent

but for

The tourist intruder and the ranger

The large mountains spectacular

With cliffs, gorges, kangaroos and emus

Rooted in this rugged landscape

Wilpena Pound

One has to be prepared to Rock’n’Roll on this

Bone shaking adventure

Arkaroola - 1800 million years old

Siller’s lookout - with views of the spinifex - covered hillside

To the east a huge closed basin

Its salt lake filled only once - back in 1974

The Mawson Plateau

With slopes so high and steep

A place where no human being has trodden

Untouched by human footfalls

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Contrasts (Italy)

Amalfi Coast

Breathtakingly beautiful

Where the mountains drop right into the Mediterranean Sea

Narrow roads snake along, high above the blue

Stunning views of villas, pine, palm trees,

Cliffs and mountains, peaceful heaven

Dining at the marina in Praia no

Where the owner family sits waiting to serve me a feast

I looking out onto the fishing boats, bobbing in the sea

Outside the window sill resplendent with geraniums

Above the bougainvillea drapes

Across the window top

My heart overflows by the calm beauty

Me senses sated

Assisi

Clean, orderly

Arched laneways, odd shaped houses

And geraniums everywhere

A delight for the sketch artist

The Amalfi coast

Nurtures the soul

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Emerald Green - Mount Taylor

The gift of rain

Making our world emerald green

Reviving our earth

Changing the landscape

A million seeds hid under ash

Waiting, waiting and then it came

Rain, gentle at first

Stronger the next time around

Sun’s heat warmed their hearts

And within days the black turned to emerald green

Tufty, spiky, lush,

Covering the parched dry soil

Earth’s energy at work

From bald to crew

Nature regenerates:

A mother gum modestly covers her limbs

Following her example

Young one like a leprechaun

Covered all of itself

Green Grey leaves

And tiny trunk

Firmly planted itself

In the dry hard soil

Its learning pleases her

Stands by watching, impressed

Wears her dry top branches like a crown

Drought and fire

Part of life

They stand together as survivors

Defiant

Fire cruel and testing

And the struggle for another day begins

And I, the observer,

Look on at the miracle of potash

That nurtures all of nature’s miracles

To re-grow, re-sprout, re-leaf

A sign of hope that all is not lost

This gives us courage to move on

Perhaps learn from the devastation of fire

All of us a little scarred

Yet here,

Ready to put on an emerald green dress

And dance with the breeze

That blows gently

Cooling, cooling

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Harmony

The untamed forest

Damp and moody

While sun sparkles on high

A closed curtain is woven

From a thousand treetops

Light grasses shiver in the summer mist

As dawn prepared the day

Wild bird song that fills the air with shrill harmony

The music of nature not often heard by man

Forests expand over plains, hills and mountains

Creating a lush floor with entwined vines, clinging

Growing toward the sun

In harmony and spirit

A green mistletoe on the naked branch

A perennial hope

Survival beyond the grave of a cold winter

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FRANCES ISAAC

Faces

A Christmas binge was

clouded with apocalyptic chaos

as images flitted before my eyes.

I saw them, children gathering shells,

prancing on raised sand dunes,

hurtled, tossed in grey waters,

limbs torn like broken dolls.

They were the young ones

who like father,

would one day be fishermen,

the sea from where

they would have to fend.

The blue-satin sea

was their trusted friend.

But guileful, like a rogue

it stole in, this time

to lure them, showed

a great liquid wall

a sight never seen.

Sun-weary, they went to the wave

for comfort in lace-like arms

turned grey from blue.

Capricious, vile, it wrapped them

into its ugly breast,

to never let them go.

Vision tear-washed

I sought those faces again

in the mired seascape.

saw them scattered

amid drift-wood and trash

in black murky slush.

I may have seen those faces,

perhaps sometime, somewhere

in familiar places

where tourists indulge

on molten gold beaches.

That day when the big wave came

they were only just faces,

no traces of blood-line to connect

yet my people, my soil.

I watched without speech

when the palms sighed

a whispered benediction.

Then the faces, young souls,

sainted lives in ritual sacrifice

under an ancient fierce sum

sank down before my eyes,

to lie buried on the sea floor

like pearls in shells.

© Frances Isaac

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TO COMMEMORATE THE TSUNAMI -

IN SRI LANKA, MY HOMELAND

On Boxing Day 2004 the world was in shock after news of the tsunami that devastated so many countries surrounding the Indian Ocean.  Frances Isaac wrote an emotional article for FRIENDS about the tsunami and its effects on her homeland of Sri Lanka.  Most of us remember where we were when we heard news of this event, but how quickly we forget. One year later this poem, also by Frances, marks the anniversary and reminds us of an event, which in some way affected us all.

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An Ode to Sri Lanka

They came,

tempted by the magic of sun and earth,

sought what’s locked in evergreen folds.

Life ferrets,

they hunted treasures beneath your dust;

found serendipity.

A teardrop

in shadowed light,

a spec in endless liquid space,

you still lure the curious,

to infinite charm.

Once I was you,

breathing spice scented air,

tasted salt in ocean breezes,

my feet found you yellow sands.

When I came to leave,

I left behind a limb,

yet I cannot return;

not now.

You watch

wrapped in scarlet,

when brother strike brother

for a piece of dusty earth,

that one day will hold

withered bones

when the soul has fled.

You are tainted

air filled rage,

a voice silenced.

Sounds blast

not to proclaim your name,

but to destroy.

Now I’m only a part,

not a whole;

a piece of me still with you.

I think of what I left

my senses still drunk:

tongue filled with tastes that linger,

eyes that soaked splendour

staying with your light forever.

When day fades,

you come with mist from the hills;

and carry me to where

I first tasted life.

Then cries resonate,

through a splintered land.

 They coalesce,

tease,

and cover me like second skin.

© Frances Isaac

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RONDA ROSS

 HANDBAG POETRY

WALKING COUNTRY AGAIN

She sat in the wheelchair, head bowed
gazed at her brown time ravished hands
at the aerial view of the land she loved
and she walked her country again.

The ranges and the dry river beds,
small rocky outcrops, surrounded by smooth,
sparsley grassed wind swept plains
to the edge of the mulga stands.

Tears fell from her eyes
became rockpools in the crevices of her fingers
She saw once again her family reflections
 as they drank from the pool

She rested there for a while,
then journeyed on till dark
reached the spinifex on the edge of red sandhills
sat beneath majestic desert oaks

She slept.
She was young and running with the wind
strolled in the cool shadows of the ranges
skirted the rocky outcrops checking berries on trees

She drank from the soakage in the river bed
strode across the plains
probed the earth with her digging stick
watched the flames dance as the spinifex burned

She stood still and without raising her head
swept misty eyes across the salt lakes
towards the homelands of another clan.
Thought of the warrior - forbidden

Her tears fell on his country
She turned away and walked on,
on and away to join her people
back to her promised one

She gazed at the tiny white pebbles in the palm of her hand
raised them to her lips, drank from the glass in the other.

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FOR THE WRITING CLASS OF 2002

You gonna find a place, pick a chair
and that will be your home

You gonna wonder; do I really want to be here
If you scared you wanna shout "no way!"
but something inside you gonna say "yesss!"

Sometimes over time
The doors and windows to your heart and soul,
they gonna be shut real tight

But slowly, little bit slowly
they gonna open and let the words come out
And they all gonna be different shapes and sizes

Some of them words gonna be
skipping around, hopping and cart-wheeling and sliding
Some gonna be strolling with hands on the hips
And sneaky way too
And some gonna  be walking real sorry way, head down

And all the words gonna just jump out of there and
sneak down your arm and into that writing stick in your hand
And then - they gonna be your story
right there on that piece of paper in front of you

Nobody gonna force you to do that one
If it meant to happen it will
and sometimes there gonna be saltwater coming from your eye

But that's alright, we all been there
Might be your turn now
It's all up to you!

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