by Leni Shilton White smoke in the trees lifts slowly, it weaves through the empty frames. They hang from the branches like mirrors. She hung them there looking for herself, her mother – for all the mothers. For the women who were once here she listens in the stillness for their voices. The smoke winds sleep-like from her campfire, drifting this side to that. She puts the billy to boil and the crack of flames is the only sound in the wide yawn of quiet. A honeyeater alights on a frame its call startled and loud, the whole forest alert watching for the smoke. The frames rock in the breeze. Unblinking eyes capturing the forest, the birds the distance. She paints late into the day forgetting herself until the sun drops, the cold comes in. As the light lowers, she walks about reaches into trees collecting frames. They clatter into her bag, into darkness like eyes closing. She empties the billy onto dry leaves, breathes in eucalyptus. She packs away her paintings her paints, the perfect blend of green, of grey. She tips water on the campfire steps back from the blast of steam. The last of the coals scattered, she heaves bags on her shoulder trudges up the creek bed, feet slipping in the dry sand. Behind her, the forest is itself again No frames to look through, no fire or smoke just itself for a thousand miles, stretching and shaking in the breeze. Leni Shilton is a poet and verse novelist. Her book Walking with camels won the 2020 NT Chief Ministers Book Award. Leni’s poetry work appears in journals and anthologies, and she judged the 2020 Stella Prize. After many years in Mparntwe | Alice Springs, she now lives on Dja Dja Wurrung country. Image credit Pam French
Fowlers Gap/Broken Hill area, acknowledging the Wilyakali/Wijaali peoples Poem from exhibition: Mother Mother with my sister, visual artist Pam French Newstead Arts Hub, Newstead, Victoria, Dja Dja Wurrung Country, 5-27 October 2024
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