New Voices write in Centennial Park

In March I taught a workshop to the New Voices writing group, who meet in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney. Following our heatwaves of summer, we’d had dumpings of rain. I took them for a ginko into Centennial Park, from the Bondi Junction end. Here are our best efforts, with my echo to one of the haikus in each person’s work. 

pressing my nose

to the tree’s trunk -

Maori greeting

Diana

after the rain

blotched lichen on tree trunks

glows, grows.

this bare stick

plaything of dogs

once a flourishing branch

Dexter

yes, always weeds,

happy about the rain -

I also

Diana

A cascade of branches

kissing the earth.

Not bending, connecting

Oliver

it emerges

from under tree-skirts

perky white terrier

Diana

Centennial Park has multiple uses, and users. I love seeing the dogs so happy, free to bound around in a big space, with so many different smells.

burnt branch

shape of an iguana

car revs its nonchalance

Rosalie

like thunder

but more determined

an aircraft coming in

Diana

...and yes, it is a city park.

Poised trembling

Momentarily sun-kissed

A dewdrop waits

Bronze fronds

Spirally wrapped

Uncoil in grace

Haydn

big juicy lillipilli

he picks them

she eats them

Diana

Haydn fortunately knew that it was okay to eat these fruit, which looked like they were dressed for the gym in bright pink lycra.  It brought back childhood memories of what we used to nibble on - we called them “monkey apples” in New Zealand.

Vertical gash

on spotted gum

red sap healing

Through spider’s web

moss encases

rough black trunk

Jennifer

the insects

have come out to play

a break in the rain

Diana

 I wanted to convey to this group that you can write from “don’t know mind” where things present themselves in a bare way.

ash colored curlicue prints

head of leaves

the blue gum is.

Rosalie

Yes, essentially  things just are. “Don’t know” does not mean that you don’t know that it is a blue gum.  Rosalie has captured this sense. Be it human greed or belligerence – that too, just is.

Talk "Haiku in the Tarkine" at Bluegum Sangha, Sydney

Pieman River at Corinna

I'm giving a talk entitled "Haiku in the Tarkine" to the Bluegum Sangha on Tuesday April 18th. They meet at 7pm, at 2 Young St, Neutral Bay. This is an Iyengar Yoga studio. We meditate for about 40 minutes at first, starting I think at 7:20 pm. I will have come straight back from the Frankland River & Tarkine in Motion, so I look forward to telling the gathering about it all.

These photos are of the Pieman River at Corinna, and the lookout near Waratah. Everyone is welcome.

Old growth

Tarkine from lookout near Waratah

clear afternoon -
the smoke of old growth burning
has blown away

Forests are the lungs of the planet. We need them more than ever - the Tarkine is the largest cool temperate rainforest in the southern hemisphere. The Bob Brown Foundation is raising money through Pozible, and we need to raise about $17,000 in the next 2 days, or else all the $ raised so far will be relinquished. 
While I've been in Waratah, there's been a haze from the burning of the old growth, which is bulldozed to make way for the Nitins, a hybrid eucalypt from Victoria and plantation tree. This tree does major damage: it sucks up water 20 times faster than the native trees it replaces, thus lowering the water table. It is equipped with natural insecticides which wash into the soil when it rains.
Donate if you can, to:
pozible.com/project...look for Tarkine in Motion

Should the Tarkine transform to this?  on the road to Rosebery

WEA in February - next course May

Gay's drawing of me

The WEA students soaked up the spaciousness of the Botanic Gardens in the middle of Sydney, on their ginko. We’d had several heatwaves, at last some cool weather!

Gawaine Powell Davies wrote this:

Someone

Splashed paint

On those leaves

We wandered towards the bamboo groves near the pond.

kisses under

the bamboo?

JAC loves MEL

Diana

I liked Gay’s approach, which was to respond to the gardens with drawings. In the spirit of first impressions (impressionism?) I wrote a very minimalist

pink on blue

on green on

sunlighted bamboo

I think this suffers from what some people don’t like about haiku: it is a bit thin. 

 But haiku can be a way of bringing you into the present. Gawaine wrote:

Just now, the birds were singing,

And I was here,

Writing this.

And Jan said, when we’d finished, “Wow! I haven’t felt this peaceful for a long time.”

My senryu:

commentary train

an English accent talks of

Aborigines

Well, this is the modern world! We are from everywhere, and a Botanic gardens contains plants from everywhere.

Final words from Trisha, on the study part of the course. We had read a Santoka haiku. She said, “It’s so beautiful it touches me inside – how can I explain how it makes me feel?”

And about the gardens, she said, “This is a magical place”.

Look at that!

I want to say –

divine lotus flowers

Diana

My next course with the WEA starts on Monday May 1^st. It will again be a 5-week course, 9:30 am to 11:30 am. See the WEA website for details.

the ibis chick

shrieks about starvation

Mum honks back

D

Treehugger arrives in Tas.

2012 - on the edge of the Tarkine

Would you like to support my endeavour? The money raised by the Bob Brown Foundation for the Tarkine in Motion project will feed us, transport us to our destinations, provide facilities. I am going to the Frankland River!

 https://pozible.com/project/tarkine-in-motion-1

I was musing over the contents of my luggage last night. In it were so many gifts: mittens, a jacket, a top, a toiletries bag, my haiku bumbag, one of the wheelie bags - Ruby has lent me her good sleeping mat which I must not puncture. What else? A book, a set of eye exercises printed off specially for me, a woolly hat, a pair of lounge pants... given freely, just like the trees. Undies, my mobile phone, a scarf...

Encounter with a quoll

Tarkine in Motion

Arthur River TAS

Over Easter I'll be a resident haiku poet at the Tarkine in Motion camp, in Northwest Tasmania, which the Bob Brown Foundation is putting together. Ill show you what I know so far, of this vast wild area.

 I drove around it last December, starting at Waratah which is on the edge of the Tarkine. It once boasted the richest tin mine in the world. I drove from there to Corinna, past the iron ore mine at Savage river where a friend of mine once worked.

tailings dam, Savage River mine

 Recently there was a fatality at this mine. A contract worker fell to his death and then Grange Resources halted trading on the stock exchange.

Donaldson River, Western Explorer

Corinna is on the Pieman river, and is the start of the Western Explorer road. In January 2016, in hot and dry conditions, a series of lightning strikes started massive fires which burnt unchecked across the button grass plains.

Western Explorer

The highlight of my drive came in the evening. As I was approaching Arthur River, I saw a little creature on a bridge over a creek. It was a spotted quoll!!! I have never seen one of these creatures. They feature in the best known Gundungurra songline, in which Mirragan the quoll chases Gurangatch the giant eel across country, and this chase forms the Coxs and Wollondilly rivers (roughly speaking). Eastern quolls disappeared from the mainland with the advent of whitefella, but there are still remnants of spotted-tail quoll ( Dasyurus maculatus) in my neck of the woods. They sometimes annoy people by eating their chickens. This fella was engrossed and did not run away when I stopped my car. Then I saw why. A calling card!

Arthur River was a cold and windy place in December. I stayed overnight there.

cold wind
the cabin door slams open
inviting me out

 The next day I drove past 'Parliament House'( a fisherman's hut in blue corro) on my way to the Edge of the World lookout. Then I attempted to walk up the coast. Here's what I wrote in my journal:
"Very very windy. Rugged right up, clutching a little plastic bag of provisions: an egg, 2 peanut corn thins and some fantales. But at the point where moving forward was not achievable without a great deal of effort - I gave up. Also I was being rained on. Great drifts of wood - the river brown and foaming - the storm approacheth then raineth."

Nice try! But the locals compensated for the Roaring Forties - roadhouse lady gave me a polystyrene cup and some hot water for my peppermint tea, which I drank as it hailed.

looking upstream, Arthur River

I drove from Arthur river up the coast to Bluff Hill Lighthouse, and on to Stanley, where there is a volcanic remnant called The Nut. Climbed that. And the trip was rounded off with the "satanic mill" (thanks William Blake) at Port Latta, which processes the iron ore dug out at Savage river.

It was a small taste, and my advice would be: do it, but don't drive too fast. You might hit a wallaby and that would be bad.