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It's easy to say "this one is for you"---
it's a convention, what all fathers-to-be would do
if insomniac and sweltering with summer
humidity at three in the morning. Gambier,
Ohio---you'll be born here, your home. But where
I'm from it's hesitating towards winter,
the rains playing out their most-years ritual
of holding off, the seasons getting later and less literal:
winter means autumn and spring winter,
but a shorter version thereof. They say you're
what's called a "late child", a wonderful surprise.
I won't argue with that, and the risk of sunrise
being muted by storms make me more
rather than less optimistic. I digress: the store
of what makes me is distracted by a picture
I can see clearly behind my eyes: though I'm unsure
of the boundaries between memory
and something I've configured through free
association: maybe it's something to do with the society
I'm in? Being of both places, your identity
will be informed by such tensions. An email
from your great Auntie reminded me of a family tale:
when she was pregnant with one of the cousins
she spoke on the not-long-connected telephone, the signs
of her expectancy not yet showing. The call
went through the exchange, where even electricity will stall
as switchboards translate to gossip: by the end of day
the whole town knew and her one call to family
multiplied into dozens of incoming calls
from absolute strangers: "congratulations, we all
feel your joy . . . ". It's called the telephone paddock:
it's where the line went through. I had to plough 'round the poles:
a trick
my uncle taught me---setting the discs just right,
following the contours. A retired trucker said he'd got a fright
the other day when he heard the tractors no longer
need drivers: can plough a field using GPS---the farmer
can stay at home until his machines run out
of fuel. Weather carries a reciprocity---a bout
of sultry days here seems to mean crisp clear skies
there . . . The lines still burn through crops, and lies
and gossip and home truths hurtle through the exchange.
A birth is something a town will hear about. The range
of opinions on morning sickness will vary
as much as the weather---and humidity
will mean cold days to come before the heat sets in:
a late child will bring on the talk and advice. It's how you begin.
Surface Histories: A Town in the Wheatbelt
John Kinsella
1.
The horse rails gone, then back again,
an auntie tries the wheel
of a car that almost looks the same---
searching for gears
in an automatic, and caught
by the realization
that gesturing remains
incapable of prompting
the internal combustion engine
to connect, to drive
the analogue, to drive the main street
of town, and realizing her mistake
an error of visual
and spatial judgment, as if they
could ever be separated
detected her own car
two parking spaces away:
same color, same model
but manual version
in the town where all cars
are known by family name.
2.
It begins and ends
in some ways
with the closing of the banks.
With weekend dalliances
with historic cars, and shady pasts.
Boutique hotels
are softened out of hard drinking,
exteriors of bad seasons
washed away.
Mains power, scheme water,
the old court house
a museum.
It's all settlers
and cottage industries
only an hour's drive
from the city.
Fringing a town of commuters,
and those who won't let
sons do netball
in case it turns them,
like vampires, like "poofters".
3.
Recalling childhood
doesn't mean nostalgia,
even if swinging out on a rope
into the Avon brings pleasure.
Amoebic meningitis, those caught
by snags and roots.
4.
They move into town when kids
take over the properties,
or when they've sold up.
Living under the shadow of Mount Bakewell,
in the vicinity of their former activities.
High roofs keep old houses cool
on the slopes of Mount Brown,
and the trucks roll past
on their way to the bins.
That old man buying groceries
is Uncle Jack, his wife dead,
the farm broken up,
he's hard of hearing and frail.
He's a diviner, though I don't know
if the electricity's still with him.
5.
They're developing land out back
on the edge of the river: for years
claims were made to the shire
and turned down. But parcels
are being doled out now
and someone's making a packet:
councils come and go.
6.
The farmer's co-op
stocks tractor parts and bullets.
The company that owns it
has underwritten
the purchase and curation
of a great art collection:
of Australian art,
of home, hearth, and nation
of course.
7.
"There's less racism here
because we don't want to talk about it."
Not sure where to go with this . . .
It seems history steps in
and locals' "stories" are "celebrated".
There are a variety of histories,
and the lines of the Wagyl are clearly there
for those who know or want to know
where to look.
A variety of nationalities
attend the Catholic church, you'll hear,
though "not in great numbers."
Location set up
to speak for itself . . .
8.
Balladong Farm
is not owned by hippies,
despite bare feet and an avoidance
of pesticides. "New money
is temporary," it is said in town,
"they've let it go to seed."
The riverbank under their protection
is growing back again, foxes and rabbits
dialogue and the native birds flourish.
Heritage buildings work as studios,
and small dramas are played out
in the theatre.
9.
On the edge of town
the birds come: at the town's heart
they cull with guns.
The birdcall is saturation:
you can see it, the white corellas
change color as they intone:
the red of their blood
hazing paddocks,
bringing blood vessels
to the surface.
Consanguinity.
Rose-colored glasses.
10.
Holy Trinity,
locus for an aspect of community.
There are other churches,
other nationalities within nation.
I guess all said prayers
when the young girl
was lost on the railway line.
Her beliefs are best known by her family.
Wreaths still hang on the crossing: fresh, vital.
11.
That lot's got tickets on themselves,
they're up themselves,
and they're as rough as guts.
Think they're special,
he drinks and she shoplifts,
haven't heard of contraception,
so much money they don't know what to do with it,
rich cockies, dole scroungers,
a decent family of hard workers---
their daughter worked in the shop
before going to the city
to study, mix with the wrong crowd.
12.
That brother hasn't talked to the other
in thirty years, despite only the railway
and a vacant block dividing their houses.
They'd already stopped when settling
on their building spots: keeping an eye
out through the silence, seeing
what the other's got. One day
someone will build the vacant plot
out, though it's likely
a paper trail will lead to one or both of them,
the weeds and odd york gum
safe until they've given up the ghost,
lost sight of each other
through the growth.
13.
The windows
of real-estate offices
offer
that weekend retreat:
good water,
a view,
only a touch of salt.
Tourists come in buses
and cars, the latter
watched closely
by realtors. The bush block - increasingly rare,
the hobby farm---a fad from the 70s,
the horse plot - an active local racing industry
studded with "identities",
the stone house not far
from the river---cellars cool
to stock their wines. Turnover
is high. Weekend retreats
are commodities
that change hands rapidly.
Quid faciat laetas segetes . . .
14.
Festival. Carnivale.
The sheep in the fields
embodied.
Harpsichords in the earliest houses,
jazz in the town hall,
the end of year dance.
A reporter from the Chronicle
collects names of those he doesn't recognize---
they come from a far way out,
and there's a percentage
of the population that floats,
shifts. A vegan won a baking prize
for a chocolate applesauce cake
in the great halls of bounty
last year. The keepers
tasted without knowing
the absence of eggs and dairy.
The silent revolution.
15.
Money saved
in closing down
the youth centre
is spent on repairs
and the publicity
descrying an increase
in vandalism.
The Gods of Rome
were lost with its statues.
16.
Drinkers see a different town.
As if they've got special insight
and can clearly see the dead
and lost occupying
the same space
as the living.
17.
There are still panel vans
in Australia, and they gather
in the gravel carpark
opposite the Castle pub
on Friday and Saturday nights.
They risk burnouts,
and blokes have it off
with chicks in the backs.
The blokes say "she's a good root",
or call her a bush pig if they don't get it.
There are sluts in town,
but their side of the story is somewhere else.
18.
Old families: "settler" and Nyungar,
are spoken of with reverence or hatred.
There seems to be no indifference,
at least behind closed doors
everyone has an opinion.
Nyungars remember the names
of the whites who didn't murder
as much as those who did. White
families are mostly proud
of "treating them right"
and take pride in the production
of footballers. Nyungar people
take pride as well,
but for different reasons,
also, and at least.
19.
Anonymity of GM trials.
Landcare for increased profitability.
Red Bull girls
turning it on for the bike trials.
The 'roo in Doc Jones' yard
and the heronry
near the old railway bridge.
The destruction of the only
alpine bushland
in the wheatbelt.
A pair of black-shouldered kites
nesting just beyond
the point beyond
which they'll deliver
no mail.
Voting in the school classrooms.
Field days and chaff in the air.
Gradations of heat.
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Poetry from The Literary Review