Marthe Reed

 

 

 

 

 

Two Sisters

1

dugong and the moon (sisters), two.  lily roots and wild lotus, sisters.  dugong and moon digging.  fruit.  lily and wild sisters.  two moons, digging.  lotus, lotus fruit and dugong.  wild sisters and the moon.  knee-deep in green, green stems.  water.  lily sisters, two dugongs adrift in the moon (water)

two women (sisters).  gather lily roots and lotus (wild lotus), a game.  lilies and lotus.  where a game (she) looses them, lotus.  abandoning day.  tossed into the sky (sky).  sister game: lily and lotus fruit.  a game – evening star, evening rises (copper body).  moon’s.  gold and fat.  moon follow lotus into night

2

thin, thin moon.  one (sister) thins, grows thin.  in the sky like lotus, a game.  lotus sister (night) sister.  moon wanes, looses herself becomes.  (moon) mere bones.  moon.  wild lotus moon looses her bones  (lotus bones) into the sea.  green sea and lotus stems.  she (one).  two sisters: dugong and the moon

dugong, knee-deep in green, and the moon.  dugong digs (lily sister) wild lilies.  lily roots and wild lotus.  (two) wild moons and  lotus.  eat.  moon eats.  dugong and moon.  listless sea moon.  grows fat (moon) and wide.  lily root sea, sisters.  wild moon and dugong, wide in a listless sea.  sisters

3

red planet’s twin (moon), but two sisters.  dugong and moon.  two (red and the moon) sisters.   moon rises, looses herself.  anew.  red planet (abandoning  day) abandon.  grown round and gold moon floats, one floats in (air).  inexorably drawn (pull of the other).  floats.  in evening (sky).  one.

one.  dugong, wild lily sister (one) calls.  a rhythm.  lotus sister, adrift in green,  green lotus stems and the sea.  abandoned to green, gone wild.  wild lotus calls flung from the sea.  (wild lily calls and lotus), sky lotus.  dug from the sea (wild lily sister) and flung (dugong’s).  mantras to the season of rain

 

Place

1

Place where they rested.  Wet (wetland).  Where water rises in winter.  Reed lake, reed bed.  Filled (with) reeds.  Place.  And frog song (frogs).  Banjo frogs.  Late.  Late afternoon sound, spring sound: when the wind blows only gently.  (Where they rested).  Banjo song.  T’onng, t’onng.  (“What’s that?”)  Where the water rises.  (Reed bed, reed) lake.  Lake Badgerup.  What?  Noongar word.  Water (word).  Where they rested.  Place.  T’onng.  Banjo frog.  Where sound rises up out of the lake underneath the wind.  Gently, when the wind—

2

Hoeing.  Scuffling the earth.  (Sand.  Karakatta Dunes).  Tiny brown snake, yellow and black banded snake.  Newly formed snake scuffles out from (under) the hoe.  And back.  (Into) the ground.  Out of the light.  Scuffling into the light.  Tiger snake, brown snake.  Dugite.  Yellow and black banded snake lifted out of the sand.  Hoe.  (Newborn) four-inch snakes which last spring drowned in the carp pond.  Lily food.  Rescued (one).  One let go in the tall grass.  Rye grass, winter (rye).  Meal for a bigger snake (territorial).  Or a magpie.  Mag.  Out of the light.  Karakatta sand.  Hoeing lantern grass among the leschenultia.  Blue.

3

Keening like seagulls.  Black.  Black cockies sweep over the house on the edge of the storm.  Weather coming.  (White) cockatoos, black with white spots on their tails.  Cockatoos.  Ten or thirty, two hundred.  Swoop and sweep of black wings and tails, keening.  Glide on thermals over the roof.  Keening like (storms). Alight in the dead tops of jarrahs.  Twisted arms of jarrahs.  We (stop).  Spell-bound in their wheeling.  Thirty-five year old birds, ancient venerable birds.  Nesting lands dozed to wheat.  Black.  Black cockies squabbling (gently), squabbling.  Almonds and lemon-scented gums, remnants of pine plantations: feeding along the coast.

4

Teleological.  (Telos).  Aeolian soils, wind-carried.  Candlestick banksia, matchstick banksia.  Logopoeia.  Wind-lifted sand.  Bone (white), and mustard.  Sand.  Aeolis.  Where trees.  Sheoke, matchstick banksia.  Bull banksia.  Are fourteen metres down and four metres up.  Where cockatoos gather.  Candlestick banksia, bull banksia, jarrah.  Kangaroos drowse in their shade.  Drowse amid melaleucas (shade).  Paper barks, aeolian trees.  Wind-tossed (trees).  Down and up, drowse.  Banksia bush and balgas: fire-formed bush.  At the edges.  Telos.  Of development (subdivisions, market) gardens.  Garden.  Balgas and melaleucas.  Down and up.

 

lunar variations

                        “a moon drops flowers in your hand”

 

flower drop hands

moon hands yr

     *

moon laden hands

laden hands laboring

     *

in yr flower hands

flower moon

     *

flower women

laboring

     *

on the hillsides

flower drop moon

     *

old moon

rhododendron

     *

white viscous moon

old flower moon

     *

cloud-laden moon

old woman, old women

     *

flower moon hands

laden hands

     *

(a dream)

my hands

     *

rhododendron water

rose tree water

     *

moon dream

flowers dropped in yr hands

     *

in my hands

flower moon

     *

2 moons

flower laden dream

     *

a (      ) child

dream laden flowers

     *

moon laden

burdened with flowers

     *

child

flower moon hands

     *

laden

dropped in yr hands

     *

white and pink

moon hands yr

     *

flowers

rhododendron flowers

     *

white and pink flowers

moon

     *

caught

moon flower water

     *

celebrant (laden)

laden with flowers

     *

laboring

moon flower hands

     *

old woman’s hands

caught

     *

flower moon

caught in (mine)

 

 

Tending to Meadow

                                                for Mila

Meadow, a field tending to meadow.  A field or meadow: violets.  Blue and purple violets.  Violets on grassy stems, their (yellow) throats.  Yellow throats of violets, violets spilling over grass.  Wild mint and violets, goldenrod.  Blue and yellow field.  Meadow or field tending to.  Grass scattered with violets, over-run with violets.  Violets and wild mint.  Purple flowers.  Blue and lavender flowers, (the) yellow throats of violets.  Meadow, or field of violets.  Meadow and trees that surround.  Trees surrounding meadow.  Dogwood.  Slender trunks of dogwood, their horizontal limbs.  Dogwood spread above violets.  Horizontally.  (Horizon).  White blossoms.  White petals, the darker stamens of dogwood.  Horizontal and white.  White spread over meadow.  Horizon: violets, or white.  White blossoms tossed and scattered upon blue.  Violets, this wash of blue.  (Blue and purple water).  Sea splashed upon grass.  Meadow, or sea.  At its edge, white froth of dogwood.  Dogwood petals cast upon blue.  Dogwood and violets, (this) field tending to meadow.  This meadow, or sea.  Spring's warm breath tossing its blue surface with white.  Meadow.

 

 

From “freefall(2), writing (in) Australia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

waves of black wings pressed against air (blue). neither sifting nor sorting. (ascension)/black. given to the air, upwards, falling up. to wander shaken, black voices keening (motion of an unpowered body), a wave. body.beauty in a gravitational field. pressed against (blue), kalos. felt but not seen.wheeling

 

 

 

 

 

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