words about the desert
Words with soft sounds inside them, bordered, so imbued you can feel them as they're spoken:
'grief'
'bereft'
'belong'
Inside all the vastness I stood hidden, and grew, like mulgas in their quiet way, moulding, extending around hard places. Rocks protrude from the desert, orange at dusk and so inviting. At noon the sun is blaring and the world is washed out. I remember feeling that way too. Teenagers are so angry.
Aridity and space. Mulga's tiny poison spindles, their leaves hold no moisture and prick your skin - are they synonymous, the desert and hostility?
Did you know mulgas curl up when they die?
Holding themselves.
I'd like to talk about grief, the whole weight of it when I think of the desert.
Grief, like a shadow, gets longer and shorter,
dense, or opaque,
as the sun moves through the sky,
sometimes a shadow doesn't exist at all.
but we know it's there waiting, it'll show up sometime soon.
The desert is full of grief.
(and joy)
(and life)
there's heaviness in my stomach when I think of all the connections I've lost since I've been gone, all the landscape without me to watch,
it happens so slowly.
I feel like something in me died.
People die a lot at home,
sometimes you can feel the whole place mourning.
Grief from not knowing if I can call it 'home' anymore.
I jump when I see insects now.
I think of soft and slender ghost gum trunks, all magic and weird.
So ominous in moonlight,
I feel tender.
Big, deep blue. Winters are so bold in the desert.
'Bereft', to feel deprived, at loss of something.
I feel I wasn't grateful enough for the space and warmth when it enveloped me, incubation, I shook so terribly to get rid of that placenta.
I remember all the sweat as I walked home from the bus towards that big hill on the outskirts of town. Flies just a part of breathing. You let them settle on your back for reprieve.
I thrashed and struggled to get away.
To get out.
I had an identity to forge.
Full throttle.
In all my eagerness I left my home behind.
I've forgotten so much of that time.
It's like I took an eraser to my brain and rubbed at the things that caused me anxiety,
I rubbed too hard.
A hard city encased me,
the soles of my feet
became too soft
I became weak inside a concrete shell,
Protected from the elements.
I feel deprived, at a loss, 'bereft'. Wish I hadn't left in such a hurry and with so much misplaced shame inside me.
be
long
b e l o n g
BELONG
what is it, exactly?
sometimes I wonder if I ever have, really.
I flew to the desert, an immigrant,
across the sea from Paris.
'This is your home, now,' they said.
This vast expanse. These spiky bushes these angry wasps these dust storms these spiders these snakes these... friends, family, these colours, these mountains, these elders, these warm fires that lit up these uncles and aunties with kind, kind eyes.
The last time I 'belonged' I sat on these rocks.
Ilparpa Range (it glows in the morning)
I sat with a tea and cigarette and a guitar and a notepad
I sang.
My cathedral.
I miss it.
Built with Shorthand