Light
Poetry collection by Anne McCosker
published April 2017
by University of Papua New Guinea Press and Bookshop
Dedication Service, Australian War Memorial, London
Images illustrating this poetry appear in:
Home again! Down to the beach.
The tide is in
No foot prints seen.
I can be myself, just go
By a shore
Swept clean.
Splash of legs through lacey waves,
Tang of salt, seaweed.
Toes sink and squelch in salty mud
Wriggle about warm water.
Tomorrow I will swim at home
Over there, between the flags,
Flip and flop, surf a bit,
Wash my face in foam.
Along the shore much more erosion
Some ti-tree, banksia fallen.
I reach the rocks, pass fisher folk
Sit in a little shade,
Lean back and let soft sand
Slip slowly through my fingers
Grain after golden grain,
Have happiness in hand.
These islands, sand dunes, creek
Pandanus palm, Bay fig,
Tin roofs, galah, sea eagle,
Beacons, buoys, old jetty
Wrapped in glare of heat,
Part of and yet apart from
The Pacific Ocean,
Are so, indeed, familiar.
The tide is going out now
Coral, shell
Lie here.
Mixed with them along the shore
Foot prints
Have appeared.
They are stretching into haze,
Past jellyfish left dry
Poisonous blue-bottle.
By the water’s edge
In and out of years they weave
My childhood back
Marking with pain
A joyous creation.
I turn, retrace my steps
Wondering at the will
That made much mischief,
Led me from the land I love
For such selfish motives,
And marvelling that I could
Leave, and yet still grow
Within my country’s spirit.
Why is it each time I come
Home to my own
There is so much resentment,
Such determination
By my compatriots
To ignore, destroy all I achieve
Pretend I have no right
To be here, one of them?
The sky now glorious colour,
Blue giving way to gold
Ochre and purple sunset –
This Beauty helps me heal
Even as attempts are made
To increase my childhood trauma.
No one, no thing, ever has
Stopped sense of my belonging.
I have remained, remembered
in spite of human leaving,
This horizon mine.
When I die I like to think
Duty done, my soul can come
Freely here through Time.
The poet compares Strathnaver in the Highlands of Scotland with Queensland, Australia.
Some of her ancestors migrated from Scotland eventually to settle in Queensland.
The poet herself first sailed from Australia to the United Kingdom
on the P&O liner Strathnaver.
Broad the river, moving freely
Through a sunlit place
To the hazed horizon
Where figures muster sheep.
Ancient rock, glint of gold
Nuggets about waste
Fossicked by a hand
Used to hacking peat.
Rainbow hills, rising steeply
Circle empty space
Cloud a speckled flight
Of seaward going geese.
Flame of rowan, burning heather
Quickens here its pace
To bursts about the hearth
Wilderness of heat.
Stone in bracken, moulding corner
Patterns cut a face
Harried past the sheiling
To a busy street.
Softest echo, falling water
Words scattered in haste
From a lilting accent
Form another speech.
Wide the loch, shining beauty
Mirror of a grace
Gathered into minds
Willing to create.
My kin,
Tossed away from here --------
So complete that leaving
Now I stand
In the Hills of my belonging
A seer of shadows ---------
A returner knowing
My home – their work – Queensland.
Lion Man (about 40,000 years old)
On seeing the Lion Man statuette in the Ice Age exhibition at the British Museum. London. 2013
Straight and tall he stands
Spirit alive,
Thinking, feeling
In Human imagery.
With fingers, tools, a craftsman made
This marvellous model
That now gives me
Excited wonder.
I concentrate.
Here is no primate mind
Living in darkness,
No crouching creature
Caved visionless
Made this Lion Man.
An individual,
Has with energy
Humour, skill and pride
Carved this golden figure.
Across soul’s timeless time
Eyes meet through glass,
See in the other
That essence of being,
The creator’s will
Working material.
I understand that maker
Feel his humanity
Communicate.
Palm Sunday Roads around Rabaul
Above me, beside me,
High in the sky
Low on the ground
Planted in rows
Placed by the road,
Palms everywhere.
Shell necklace round
Blue merie blouse
Hibiscus in hair
Smart shorts, lap lap,
Best clothes being worn
To honour our Lord.
All the way lined
Ribboned with fronds,
Long fingers weaving
Green into grace
Arch about grass
Craft from my past.
A shout from the crowd
Giggles, loud laughter,
Children cry out
Greet us with grins
Sing as we pass,
Palms everywhere.
Each corner a-shimmer
Of leaf swaying light
People with faith
Let earth decorate.
I too celebrate
A journey remembered,
Palms everywhere.
Maundy Thursday Namanula Hospital Gardens
I am back where I began1
This life in Time,
Standing by a tree
Rooted amongst rubble
As mango leaves
Curl into concrete.
This man made block
Almost covered now
With shrubby undergrowth
And beak- torn seed;
So much work been done
For what purpose?
Gardens, buildings gone -
No hospital verandah
Where the cross became
One with ease from pain
And women wore starched aprons
To help a population
Through childbirth, malnutrition.
Here tropical diseases
Were skillfully recorded
Lik Lik doctors trained,
Then qualified, were able
To help on far plantations.
Feet and faces washed
Bodies cleanly bandaged
Food and drink provided
Hands touching Everyman,
Darkness put aside
As spirits came to see
Flesh healed.
In this community,
Individuals
Patterned by Christ
Within His charity,
Worked for humanity.
Down there today,
In Rabaul
People are aware
And in the churches
There is preparation.
Bread made
Table laid
Cup ready.
No war, earthquake, eruption
Has taken it away
That sense of something good
Built on this hill.
And so I stand2
Above a town
On my birth ground.
Across Blanche Bay
Along the shore
Waves filter light
Through my inheritance
As sails are seen
Moving silently
From a hot horizon
Over heavy seas
Towards the inner harbour.
I turn to watch the sun3
Set over Namanula.
From shadow forms appear
Soldiers jostle near
A kiss, confusion.
One figure walks
Beyond the crowd
Past spiteful spears
And restless shrouds
Down through a garden4
Where ashed names lie
To find His people praying.
Notes
1 The poet was born in Namanula Hospital.
2. There is a magnificent view from the Namanula ridge over the town, across Blanche Bay, out to islands and inland mountains.
3. From Namanula Ridge, late afternoon, 22rd January 1942, Nobby Clark, chief civilian warden, hurried from his Lookout Post to warn many civilians waiting in the town trenches that the Japanese invasion was imminent – and that the military garrison had abandoned Rabaul. Most of these civilians including Clark were to die as POW. Rabaul was totally destroyed during WWII, rebuilt, and then destroyed mainly by volcanic ash after the volcano ‘Tuvurvur’ erupted in 1994. It has not been rebuilt.
4. Pre WWI, Botanical Gardens were created by the German administration along the lower slopes of the Namanula ridge. A track from the ridge went down through the gardens to the town.
Additional poems from Eastertide Rabaul:
Good Friday Service at St. George’s Church
Holy Saturday Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, Bita Paka
Easter Day Service at St George’s Church
Easter Monday Matala Journey
After Eastertide Drive from Rabaul around Blanche Bay to the airport.
Light across dark water
Sketches a town
In slumber,
Each lamp about the harbour
A sway of flame
Outlining installations.
Night wanders round and into cloud
A shadow over ships
That stand
Like shrouds
Anxious for morning.
Stars skip above a crater,
Dip and dance down to the ground
Die in shelled sand
Gathering great oceans.
Rabaul fades
Through moving glass
Blotched up with ash,
The past again.
Soon dawn will come
A fiery sun
Redraw Rabaul, reflect a face
Circled by palm, reefed sea, volcano,
For I, my life,
Has always been
About THIS place,
This hot-limbed land of sharp caress,
Nothing has changed, departure meaningless.
Let their names be
Just let their names be
Carved into columns
Honoured in stone
They knew who they were
They knew what they did.
Covered by crosses
Resting with mates
Everyone counted
Secure in his place,
Faces reflecting all
Those who loved them
Can live easily
In kin memory.
Sudden disturbance, vision distorted
Shifting, shoving, false imagery,
Features pushed out of focus.
Pages are printed, history decided
With material used out of context.
Graves reopened as untrained minds
Peck like crows at veteran bones
And their close families.
Into remembrance a sharp laugh comes,
Shadows arise in the fields.
Leave them alone, please let the men be, just let the men be.
After reading an account of my uncle Lieutenant F.W.S. Martin’s background and war record in a ‘history’ of Australian men who fought in World War I.
My opinion is that any research undertaken without either personal knowledge of the soldier to be researched, or his background, or at least some academic training, should be most thoroughly checked before being published. In my experience Army records can be wrong, work done from census forms can give a laughably wrong impression, even photographs can be misinterpreted.
Sixty years after the fire bombing of the city
Through night the dead leaves fall
One upon one,
Cobbles have become a bloody coloured carpet.
Statues stand aloof
Hollow eyed,
Black flacks of fury cut into each heart.
A thousand candles etch
Face after face,
The 'balcony of Europe' blazes with elegance.
Overhead searchlights
Sweep westward,
Awful fingers flick remembrance from the pall,
Beams circle, pause, pass on
Gargoyles watch,
The sky is empty - now.
Darkness though lets grief
Choke throats,
Centuries have melted down to nothingness
A sound above jerks features up
Red wine spurts,
Heads twist to sight from alleyway and attic.
Tongues flare the furnace
Satanic sanity,
Makes all men mad.
Time destroys itself
Spaced pain
Can understand the grave
As round the Kruenkirche
Flesh terrified,
Turns spirit.
With day the sun will give
Reflection,
Beauty burnt to ashes a-quiver in the light.
The Frauenkirke is rising,
Art remains.
Trees grow beside fine palaces
Canna flames along the Elbe
Lantana flowers;
Plants from my own home town.
There, I heard an angry cry
My mother's,
For the 'enemy' - in Dresden.
I am a stranger here
The people
Live beyond me.
And yet - an early memory
My mother horrified,
Gives her to me - in Dresden.
1 Pont du Gard
A bright blue day and the mistral blowing,
We walk this monument
Prepared to be impressed
By Roman governance.
Even water channelled, organised, controlled!
Heavy stone
Dried thumb
Empty scroll
Grave bone.
Musty shade
Ashed tongue
Weary race
Dead state.
Every chiselled arch dusted down with mould!
A bright blue day and the mistral blowing,
Swallows dot and dash
Ignore this edifice
Catch insects for the nest.
2 Cezanne at his Atelier Aix en Provence.
I’ve imaged you through hours
Sure hand, sharp eye,
Busy with clouds.
I’ve hung Cezanne on walls
Strong form, clear light,
Breathe about halls.
Last year I went
To Aix where you painted
Found your workplace
And there, by the stair,
Surely you waited
There, in that space.
For there, by your stair
I, rather tired
Suddenly smiled.
A second brushed still
As together we stood
Art everywhere.
3 Espace Van Gogh Arles
The hospital gardens have been restored to match Van Gogh’s descriptions.
Marigold and pansy, golden red together
Pattern out with petals an artist’s energy.
Sunshine in a garden mirrors where you walked
Desperately seeking something from this world
While all the time a warm light shone
Through your bandaged face.
Marigold and pansy, blue iris, lavender.
4 Avignon
Description of a Mass as heard from an ancient chapel which was opposite the poet’s hotel room.
The mistral was raging outside.
Through a sea comes singing
Leaves become green spray
Within a mistral’s rage
Every tree a breaking surf
Pounded into pavement.
It has cleared the cloisters
That chant from distant ages,
Words are massed to water
Spin about with plastic
Flotsam in a wave.
Twigs jetting through the gutter -
One beggar blocks the way,
He huddles by the chapel
An island in some ocean,
This kerbside his café.
The mistral shrieks and whines
So much now to say,
Branches thrash around
A golden crucifix
Splintered off by rails.
Crashing over roof tops
Bells join in the fray
Willing all to pray.
That head has lost its halo,
Trembles in the gale.
Here the last ‘Amen’.
Will any one today
Fill the beggar’s bowl?
A shutter snaps and flaps
Christ’s congregation strays.
5 Yesterday was Anzac Day. Vauclause
A voice behind me as I walked
Enjoying a street
Tree lined, cafed, crowded.
I heard my native accent
Someone from Australia
Spoke of London, poppies -
Yesterday was Anzac Day.
I stopped, turned, forgot
Tourist Europe.
“Were you there? “ I asked.
The woman smiled, said proudly
“My daughter rang and told me,
She was at the Abbey.
I feel I know about it”.
We spoke then of the service
Held every Anzac Day
When the Past could be remembered.
I stood there too, again
Watching my father
March through our town
In the Anzac Day parade.
Australian War Memorial London
11th November 2003
Blood of my blood, living here still,
Matilda comes waltzing up Constitution Hill.
Cold the morning, grey the sky,
Sun muffled up in cloud
Missing.
We stand in rows
Circling the world.
Dead men around us,
Patiently wait
For the word.
Faces are fading
Back into photos
Seen as a child.
Well known strangers
Now cluster in.
This reading of names, year after year,
This seeking some thing
Began long ago.
Why are we here?
Who was alive
When the first battle started.
Why shuffle and sigh
When banners unfurl?
Do we remember
To show how we care -
Just like to wave,
Want to be noticed.
Have guilt assuaged?
Damp the air, chilled the bone
Trees drift through fog,
Limbs cut.
Young men are boating
Strolling the Strand.
Nearby they pass
Under this arch
Bright eyes delighting.
And then
Into death they go
Body left behind
Somewhere in the mud,
Living lost.
A whirl of smoke, beyond the crowd,
Silently searching
Dissolves upwards.
All those young men dying,
Did they find
There,
In war
Light beside them.
A Presence, radiating
Energetic calm
Ingathered to itself
Within and yet apart
From all the slaughter.
Did friend and foe,
Share in despair
Holiness of Being.
Greet the Son
With bloodied cloak.
The last leaf falls, fingers curl,
Wandering free
A sketch of skeletons
My father walked round here
Stood there,
Over there,
Looking up at gunners -
One of the 'fellowship'.
Old man
Remembering
His youth amongst the guns.
He moves towards a space
Curved into stone.
There now he reads, carefully,
Where he fought
And his best mates fell.
My life
Formed by war, two wars,
Has become
Scenes
Snapped today.
The film runs back
And forward.
Finite death
Opens out to Love
Infinite and always.
White the gull, wings outstretched
Earth is crossed
In sting of innocence.
For a while
I am
Where my nation is.
Dual life contained,
Crafted out by granite.
A little more of London
Is claimed now by its own
To be its own.
Anthem echoes anthem
In united prayer.
A-wallow in matter, fashioned to kill,
Might an age wait,
Wait for miracles.
Is this the purpose?
Can hope come from dead men
Who, caring to be human
Gave Love in spite of Satan
Clawing at creation.
Far away youth pauses,
Perhaps its sacrifice
Will not be in vain.
All may yet understand
God's breath is everywhere.
Red the petal, black the core
Generations pass
Through a wreath of flowers.
Blood of my blood, living here still
Matilda comes waltzing up Constitution Hill
Circles and stops. A figure sits down
Content in the flame of a People's Will
To rest for awhile on hallowed ground.