By Christine Smith

The softness of a dressing gown
Dyed in the hues of the desert
Suzanne, yes I did notice
Your nurturing hands releasing
Our survival kits to adventure
“Bon Voyage would-be Diggers”.
The Prison of Warwick weeps
Across lushness, green
Who invented the bars of exclusion?

Autumn leaves scatter with tourists roaming
That extra H of Hahndorf
Echoes the bells of Europe
The gulping of beer,
The ode to holidays
Tempts the thirst
Across hills of vineyards
As the Pen folds onto the
Chalice of Cab Sav and twisted sheets

Lutheran dreams and Hans Heysen landscapes
Where knarled Herbnick eyes gaze hollowed,
as the Cornish leave rugged cliffs for
Their burrows to copper as we
Would be Diggers are lulled by giant wind gods
While McCartney unplugged harmonises
With Ulolooloo, Orroroo and Wallaway hey hey,
Cupp’d or cocktails? Hey hey hey!
Yes, I am serious

The hub of the Flinders
Is not the Hawker of barking dogs and whinging toms
But Jeff Morgan’s palette of
Sharpened ridges and smokey grey ranges
Compared with undies drying on the dash
Framing a landscape
Is this the moon?

Roads forget their fences as
I breathe in wilderness
Brachina gorge collects 520 million
Years of existence as trees
Line the hills like Sydney bridge climbers
No wilderness
Back on track
The land flattens like a
Giant pancake to laughing skies

Red gibbers shine their tongues to
The ancestors of rivers and wind
Farina beckons an ancient oven
Of cream buns and
Hollowed corridors embrace ceilings of stars
A heart broken mother in the loss of your son
Beloved sons and daughters
This is the wilderness
The breath of the Outback.

Christine Smith